


Arsonist's Lullabye

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Nothing too explicit, Really angsty though, also at one point clarke is 17 and bellamy is 19, also some smut, so just be aware of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:06:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4824782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because, and it’s funny how things turn out to be that way sometimes, Clarke Griffin is thirty years old, an accomplished medical professional who was set to marry her fiancé in a month, but the only thing she can remember as a moment of pure happiness in her whole life is scorching hot Virginia summer, being seventeen and lying on the hood of a bright red Mustang, holding hands with a boy who wore the same pained expression as she did, but there were flames in his eyes.</p><p>--</p><p>In which Clarke's life spirals downwards and she goes back to the town of Ark, just like she did when her father died thirteen years ago, because the town and one Bellamy Blake helped then and she's hoping they can help now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All You Had Is Your Fire

Clarke Griffin is thirty years old, an accomplished cardiac surgeon, due to marry her fiancé in a month and ten days, and the string of pearls that grace her collarbone is the testament of how good her life is. In a sleek black dress and hair in a tight bun on top of her head, she is charming and dashing, all because of the dinner in her honor. Because she’s made it, because she’s the one of the best cardiac surgeons in the whole country, and her co-workers admire her.

“Honey, I’m sorry I can’t make it tonight.”

Finn Collins is her fiancé and he’s undoubtedly the spitting image of the husband a woman like her should have. He is all polished appearances and expensive Armani suits, and he loves her like you are supposed to love a woman like Clarke – with utmost respect.

As it is wont to do with couples like them, he has a business dinner, being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and that’s why he can’t make it to the banquet held in her honor. But she doesn’t mind, they’re both busy with their lives and everything is good as long as he doesn’t have to entertain potential business partners on their wedding day.

So she turns around and smiles at him, the perfect reciprocation fixed on his face as well, and he whispers into her ear that she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Clarke Griffin loves Finn Collins in a way men like him should be loved – a bit humorously, softly and elegantly.

She is driven to the banquet, of course, courtesy of the hospital’s director, mentor and an old family friend, Thelonious Jaha, and when she steps out of the car, she is greeted by many numerous cheers and chaste pecks on her cheeks. Someone squeezes a flute of champagne into her hand and then begins the dance of trying to encircle the whole hall, faces glistening under the crystal chandelier, as everyone begs for a moment with her.

It feels good because it should. She’s the one that’s done it, she’s the one who survived college without getting obscenely drunk, med school without partying every weekend in order to get good grades, and she’s the one with hands so precise and mind so resourceful as to allow her the minimum number of lost patients and the maximum statistics for her patients’ recovery.

Clarke Griffin is on top of the world.

Small talk is not her forte, not exactly, but she manages to do it with utmost grace and elegance her mother would be proud of. Some of the people gathered in the room must be speculating that the only reason she’s here today is Abby Griffin, but that’s hardly the truth. Your mother’s influence can’t get you steady hands and the ability to think fast and act faster when someone is about to die on the table. That’s all on Clarke.

She makes her way to the podium, careful not to ruin her dress, and she takes a small sip of water before beginning her speech. No cards are needed, she knows who she has to thank – God, Jaha, her coworkers and her parents – and in that order, and she flashes a brilliant smile before cleaning her throat. Everyone is mesmerized.

“Good evening and thank you all for coming,” she’s practiced this much more than she would care to admit, during the nights when Finn was away, wearing nothing but her silk robe and standing in the illuminated bathroom of their apartment. “It is a pleasure to see so many friendly faces on this fine day. As you all know, Medical Digest pronounced me as the best cardiac surgeon under fifty in the United States. To be frank with you, I am still trying to get used to that.”

Add in a bit of humor, that goes well. Even if it’s pretense rather than actual laugh-inducing remarks. And then, be humble, because there’s nothing people love more.

“All I have been trying to do in the past five years is my job. It never occurred to me that there are awards you can win for doing your best. But, apparently, there are. And I would like to thank the committee of Medical Digest for approving of my work but, before that, I need to thank God, for making all of this possible. My mentor, Thelonious Jaha,” she nods towards the man who is standing in the first row and he smiles at her. “Who was with me during those long working hours and who reassured me that I could become a good surgeon. A big thank you to all of my co-workers who were my strength when I didn’t have any. And finally, my parents, Abby and Jake Griffin, who believed in me even when I couldn’t find it in myself. Thank you for this immense honor, and thank you for being here to celebrate with me. Thank you.”

The moment Clarke stops talking, a gracious smile on her face, practiced earlier, the hall erupts in applause. _Thank you, I did this with my two hands. Thank you, I am the sole proprietor of my belief and strength. Thank you for being here even if I can see your faces going green with jealousy. Thank you, thank you, for nothing. But thank you, Clarke Griffin, because you are me and we know the best what we’ve done to succeed._

But she didn’t say that because you had to be humble. She didn’t say that because you had to lie.

Her mother caught up to her later in the evening, when she was done draining the fifth champagne flute and her vision was already blurry at the edges.

“Wonderful speech, Clarke,” Abby pecked her cheek and paused to take her in. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks, mom. Thanks for coming.”

“There’s got to be someone on your side tonight,” Abby retorted, as quick-witted as ever. No, her mother wasn’t exactly like the rest of them but she could pretend.

She’d taught Clarke how to pretend, too, something that helped her along her way. You can’t fight it, so you might as well join it. With time, you even stop concealing yourself – all the years of secrecy melt into oblivion, and your hands can’t reach the past anymore. Nothing to worry about.

It didn’t matter that every time Clarke had to do one of these dinners it felt completely wrong. Her work was blood and heart tissue, quite literally, and her scrubs became a part of her – it felt odd to change them for sleek dresses and polished appearances, even if for one night only.

Wells would understand, she thought as an elderly woman told her she’d always believed in her, no matter that Clarke didn’t know her name. Wells Jaha would understand and with him in tow, the night would have been easier.

But Wells was dead, long gone, and Clarke sometimes thought that there must be something so inherently wrong in her to not let go of it. Thelonious could, everyone else who knew Wells could. But it still felt like a piece of her was missing when he wasn’t here to celebrate her success. Their success. He would have been a brilliant neurosurgeon, if only the accident hadn’t happened.

Sometimes, Clarke hates herself for being calm when she should be angry, and for surviving even when Wells didn’t. And at other times, she knows it’s what she had to do to make it through.

After she had done another circle around the room, it became clear to her that these people could do without her. Everything they had wanted to do was congratulate her, hug her, tell her how proud they were (even if she had seen them twice in her life before that night, and they didn’t exactly bring anything to the metaphorical table of her success) and now that that was done, she might as well scuttle off.

So that’s what she did. The car was still parked in front of the hotel and she got in, thanking a few people along the way, asking the driver to take her home. Right now, all she had wanted to do was sit on the couch with Finn and two wine glasses, talking about how his meeting went.

The drive to her home was a pleasant one, with her head comfortably leaned on the window in the backseat, lights of Boston flashing by. There was so much history in the city, but there were tall skyscrapers too, and she couldn’t help it but to wonder how it is that the past and the future intertwined so brilliantly in the city she had grown used to calling her home.

The driver dropped her off sometime around eleven and she found herself ridiculously hoping that Finn is done with the dinner and that he’s home. Otherwise, she didn’t know who to call to talk her through the vague uneasiness that settled in her stomach after she had made her speech. Nothing felt quite right after it, and the feeling of pride that she had set off with when the evening promised to be splendor and charm was now gone, replaced by the anxiety climbing up her throat.

“Finn, are you home?”

Their apartment was enveloped in darkness, only faint traces of yellow light coming from their bedroom. He was home.

She took off her heels and dropped them by the door, left her clutch resting on the table in the foyer, and she practically tiptoed to their bedroom, stifling giggles. It was better, everything was better when she was home.

“Finn? I’m home!”

The doors to their bedroom opened with a croak, pushed lightly by her hand, and her heart stopped in her chest.

Finn was home. But he wasn’t alone. A brunette, who had her back turned to Clarke was straddling him in the middle of their custom-made Italian-imported bed, everything enveloped in her long black hair. And they didn’t even see Clarke. Finn reached up to cradle the woman’s cheek in his right hand and she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his in an infinitely gentle manner.

Only then, flicking her eyes towards the door, did she realize that they weren’t alone.

Everything stopped for a second, the shocked look on the woman’s face, Finn’s wide-spread eyes and a hand reaching to cup the woman’s breast, frozen midair, Clarke standing in the middle of the doorway, rigid, paralyzed.

The feeling was back. But now, it was all-encompassing, so black Clarke couldn’t even see, not really, couldn’t even hear past the loud beating of her heart and the sound of something ripping to shreds inside of her.

And then, all hell broke loose in the woman’s swift motion to grab the sheet and cover herself, Finn’s look of terror as his eyes bore into Clarke’s and Clarke was still frozen in the doorway.

“Who the hell are you?” the brunette demanded, her body still impossibly close to Finn’s, eyes searching for something, anything in both of the other people’s. She wouldn’t find it in Clarke’s empty stare.

“I should probably ask you the same,” Clarke spoke, even before she knew she was doing it. Her limbs still felt like they weren’t a part of her.

“Raven Reyes, Finn’s _girlfriend_.”

A hysterical bark burst out of Clarke’s lips and she found herself finally in motion, hand enveloping the door handle.

“I’m Clarke Griffin, Finn’s _fiancée_.”

The woman, Raven, took a millisecond to process it before she jumped out of the bed, recoiling from Finn like he was a plague-carrier, and her fist connected to Finn’s face before Clarke could even register the movement.

He let out a loud yelp, clutching his nose, while Raven held on to her sheet.

This isn’t my life, Clarke heard the words being repeated in her mind and yet, she was lost for those she could actually say. Raven still looked livid, and Finn was rolling around in the bed, screaming out something she couldn’t hear.

_This is not my life._

It didn’t hurt, not really, when Clarke thought about it in a moment of stillness. It didn’t hurt as much as you needed it to hurt when you found your fiancé in a bed with other woman. It was just a feeling of emptiness wrapping your body and shock that makes you want to drown in hysteria.

“What the fuck, Finn!? What the hell have you been doing!?” Raven shrieked at him, a couple of steps from Clarke. If she’d wanted to, she could have grabbed Raven’s head and smash it against the wall. But she didn’t. All that Clarke was, is, was lost in the numbness.

“Yeah, Finn, what the hell have you been doing?” Clarke parroted the other woman’s words with a monotone.

“Clarke, baby, this isn’t what it looks like,” he pleaded, blood streaming through the fingers still pressed to his nose.

“Who the hell is she!?”

“Not now, Raven-“

“Fuck you!” Raven cut him off, gesturing towards Clarke. “Who the fuck is she because you and I have been together for eight years and-“

Eight years found the way to Clarke’s core and she opened her mouth to speak. “Eight years?”

Raven nodded, shooting daggers in both Clarke and Finn’s way.

Eight years. And Clarke and Finn have been together for two. Clarke was the other woman. And that was the funniest thing she’d heard all day so she let the laughter rippling her throat out, shaking as she still clutched the handle, doubling over in hysteria. Somewhere along the way, tears started streaming down her cheeks, but she couldn’t stop it.

She couldn’t stop anything anymore.

Finn was still looking at her, an absurd figure clutching his nose and reaching toward Clarke in pleading, naked as the day he was born, and the world had lost all its meaning.

“Clarke-“ he started again but Clarke waved him off, still laughing in the doorway, and now Raven accompanied him in his confused look.

It took her a while to come to her senses, the two of them pausing while she came to, standing in their respective places except the stranger looked out of place, stuck in someone else’s drama. She had the sense to get angry but Clarke couldn’t even do that.

“Okay,” she finally pressed out, wiping the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Both of you, out now.”

Raven started grabbing her clothes from where they were strewn around the room. Underwear on the lamp, pants just by the closet where the dress Clarke was wearing had been hanged in, shirt on the rug two steps from Clarke, shoes under the bed.

When she had the things in her arm, she looked at Clarke.

“Keep the sheet.”

Raven nodded, rushing past Clarke in the doorway and slamming her into the handle by the force of her steps alone. The front door slammed and then Clarke could hear the shouted swearing coming from the hallway. Only then did she turn to Finn.

His eyes were full of pleading. Those eyes that she had once found to be the most comforting thing in the world when they studied her after a long day. His hands were bloody from the broken nose, the same hands that once held hers as she thought that this was what love was supposed to feel like – not a hurricane, but a warm summer drizzle, enough to keep you happy.

“I said both of you, didn’t I?”

“Clarke, please don’t do this, please,” he begged. “We were together even before I met you and she was in India for the last two years, I thought we broke up and I meant to tell her that you and I were getting married but-“

“But you had to fuck her first?” the sharpness in her voice surprised her. “No, Finn, just get out.”

“Please, Clarke, don’t do this – I love you, she is _nothing_ compared to you. I love you.”

The blood from his hands was now on her cheeks as he thought being closer to her would make her change her mind. But she could still smell her on him and even then, it might not have mattered.

“You have ten minutes,” she squeezed out through her gritted teeth, finding herself in the middle of the whole maelstrom, finding the sharpness that had got her through life. It didn’t matter much that she loved him. “Get your things and get out.”

“What – what about the wedding?” he asked, confusion painting his face red.

“The wedding?”

He nodded.

“The wedding is fucking off. Now get the fuck out before I flay you alive!”

These were not her words. These were not the words of Clarke Griffin, successful cardiac surgeon who just had a party thrown in her honor. But these words were the words of Clarke Griffin, seventeen years old and in pain.

She almost forgot what pain tasted like. But the rust and the steel were back, mocking her for thinking there’s a way to escape it.

It took him five minutes and then he was out, much like Raven some time before, leaving Clarke alone behind the closed doors of the apartment they decorated together, had furniture imported, planned where their wedding portrait would hang (in the living room, above the piano). The air was heavy with the smell of the woman and Finn’s bodies, together, and Clarke heard a crack.

She’d ripped out the door handle.

And then, like the waves of anger and fury finally washed over her, she threw it into the opposing wall, relishing in the thud it made when it fell down to the bed. Everything before her eyes was red, just red and no shades, the reddest red you could imagine – the red of fury, the red of love, the red of blood that kept on spilling through her fingers, the smell sticking to her hair – the smell that now had this room in its daze, and she marched towards the bed, stripped it empty of the rumpled sheets and the pillows.

The bathroom was dark when she threw the sheets and the pillowcases in the tub. It was dark when she got all of Finn’s shirts out from the closet and did the same with them. But it wasn’t dark when she got out the lighter she’d had since she was seventeen years old, and set it all ablaze.

And God, didn’t it burn brighter than all of her fury.

 

* * *

 

She walked through the hospital doors on Monday morning with a head held high. If you’re ruined, at least do it with style. Or something.

She checked out her timetable, like she did every Monday morning, and she drank her coffee in the staff room before the first scheduled surgery. No one thought anything of it because she tried to smile as much as she would usually, tried to do everything like her heart wasn’t set aflame the same moment she set the sheets on fire, like she hadn’t seen her fiancé in the bed with his girlfriend, making her the other woman. She smiled like her heart wasn’t torn to shreds because big girls don’t cry even when their hearts are broken.

And everything was going good. Thelonious and she had lunch, after which she called the wedding planner to let him know that the wedding was off and that he could send the bill to Finn. Because she sure as hell won’t be paying for the beauty of walking in on your fiancé and his girlfriend. Then she talked to Abby in her office, when they didn’t have surgeries scheduled, and she let her know. Her mother held her gaze for a long time, and then she just pressed out an “I’m sorry” and hugged her so tight Clarke had to fight back the urge to cry.

It wasn’t until she had the last surgery in the day, when she was operating on a thirty year old man who’d just had a heart attack but had a pacemaker already, that she broke down in the middle of the OR.

His heart was beating steady in his chest, the heart rate monitor was letting out contented peeps, and everything was alright. Until a nurse handed her a scalpel and Clarke froze in her steps, the sharp blade millimeters from the man’s chest.

Her hand twitched.

Her hand twitched millimeters from the skin she was supposed to cut with precision, and then it kept shaking. The nurse asked her whether she was alright, a familiar pair of eyes above the sky-blue facemask, and she told her she was.

This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t her life. Clarke’s hands were nothing but steady, even when she was at her worst, after eight cups of coffee in one day and a sharp pain in her head, signifying a migraine was at bay. Clarke’s hands were steady through everything.

“Doctor Griffin, are you alright?”

The voice of the nurse assisting her was far away, somewhere behind the wide doors they’d brought the patient in through, far away from the heaving breaths that Clarke knew meant a panic attack or hyperventilation at best, but she couldn’t open her mouth.

Her hand was shaking, scalpel still clutched in it like it was sure Clarke could do this, except for the tremors.

Deep breathing didn’t help. She’d tried that while everyone else paused, eyeing her in concern but knowing better than to ask her if she needed help.

Her hand was shaking and there was a man she needed to operate on because he was thirty years old, had people who loved him, and his life was in his hands. Trembling hands.

“Fucking hell!”

The equipment from the table was thrown to the floor as she banged her fists on it, staring at the metal surface while tears pooled in her eyes. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t fucking do this because her hands were shaking and because it was a month and nine days before she was supposed to get married to Finn, and now her whole fucking life was in ruins. Just like that.

“Page for doctor Jaha.”

“Is she going to be alright?”

“Jesus, her hands are shaking.”

It wasn’t until that last comment that she turned around, tears soaking her facemask, and shouted. “Yes, my fucking hands are shaking! Anybody got a problem with that!?”

Jaha stormed in through the doors, the picture of order and precision, took one look at her and then motioned for her to follow him out.

Her footsteps echoed in the long hallway while she snapped her gloves off, throwing them to the floor, and took off the mask that stopped her from breathing. But her breath was still caught in her throat, lost somewhere between her lungs and her mouth, leaving her to heave.

“Griffin, what’s going on?”

She didn’t want to talk to fucking Jaha, not now. Every time something happened he had this disappointed look in his face, every single time someone screwed up, and she didn’t want to see it focused on her.

She didn’t need that.

“My hands are shaking, I can’t do it. You’ll have to operate.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?” she barked out, pushing herself off the wall she’d been leaning on, pristine scrubs and hands she couldn’t even look at anymore.

“You had a fit in the middle of the OR.”

Here she was, fighting hard just to stay afloat and he was still so calm. Jesus Christ, everyone in her life was so calm, all collected demeanor, and she tried so hard to channel it but then came Finn, then came the stupid fucking speech she had to make even if it was pointless. She needed chaos when her whole life was turned into one.

She didn’t need Jaha’s self-righteous look, like every loud word she’d said was the proof of how she was going to hell.

He kept looking at her, speechless, and then he didn’t anymore. He turned on his heel but before he entered the OR, he looked over his shoulder and spoke. “Go talk to someone, Griffin. Take a leave of absence for as long as you need. Come back when you’ve learned to control yourself, or don’t come back at all.”

The same moment that he closed the doors, her fist hit the wall. And the blood on her knuckles didn’t help.

 

* * *

 

She did take a leave, three months of it. The first few weeks she spent cooped up in her apartment, ignoring the fact that life went on without her, and leaving only when she had a session with her therapist. Apparently, this was what grownups did. They kept their head down, figured their shit out and they were ready to properly function again.

Except that her hands were still shaking. In miniscule tremors, but enough to disable her from doing her job. Her steady hands and her steady mind were all that she’d had. And now she was losing them both.

Exactly one month before she was supposed to be due to marry Finn, she was sitting on the couch in her therapist’s office. The man, Marcus Kane (the best there is, in her mother’s words) raved on and on about channeling your stress in a positive way. Art therapy, writing, whatever helped her feel better. She stopped listening a long time ago because she was a doctor, and doctors didn’t have time for hobbies. That was the path she’d chosen thirteen years ago and she gave it everything she got. She hated it until she started loving it, and she wasn’t the one to quit.

“Clarke?”

Kane’s voice snapped her from her reverie, and she turned to look at him. The sympathetic look in his eyes didn’t make her feel better in the slightest. It was like it was shouting at her to pull herself together, because she didn’t need sympathy. Clarke just needed steady hands.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that it might be good for you to take this time off to think about what is it that you really want.”

“I know what I want. I want my hands to stop shaking so I can go back to work,” she deadpanned. Kane wasn’t convinced.

“It doesn’t look that way to me. Are you happy with what you’re doing? Are you happy with your life?”

No. Absolutely not.

She was proud of herself, she was content when she was engaged to Finn, she was ambitious enough to become a cardiac surgeon by the time she was thirty. Happiness was pushed aside in order to feel satisfied.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, ask yourself when the last time you were happy was. What were you doing, what did you want to do then. And start from there.”

After the session was over and Kane told her he hoped that she would start feeling better, she drove back home. And all the while she was driving, she couldn’t stop replaying his words in her head.

When was the last time she was happy, really? Because she loved Finn, and they had their moments of bliss, but it wasn’t happiness. They were good for each other, respectful and loving, but she never woke up wanting to kiss him, explicitly. She woke up knowing he would be there and she would kiss him over the breakfast, but she didn’t wake up wanting to do it. It wasn’t an all-encompassing feeling of needing to do it so bad that it made her rush out of the bed when she was tired.

She was good at what she did. She was proud of herself. Med school had ruined better people than she was, it sucked the life out of then until they dropped out, going to wherever the hell med school dropouts went. But she pressed on, she persevered, and she made it.

When Wells was hit by the drunk driver, her mother told her it was alright if she wanted to take a year off. To mourn. To cope. To do something. But Clarke shook her head, closed the doors in her mother’s face and went back to studying for her anatomy final. A lot of work made it easier not to think about it and with that, she survived. Somehow.

After that, it was ambition and the feeling of satisfaction of helping someone make their life better. Saving someone’s life. She loved the exclusivity of being able to grab a coffee on her way to work in scrubs, see the looks of admiration when their eyes brushed her name plate, signed with ‘Surgeon – Cardiac Surgery’. The exclusivity of being able to say you were drop dead tired because you worked a graveyard shift and had to operate on someone at 3 a.m. She liked how much it said about her.

But she wasn’t happy. Not once. Not once was she so ridiculously happy that she wanted to shout at the top of her lungs, laugh like a maniac and skip around in excitement.

Happiness, in a way, ended for her when she was seventeen years old.

Because, and it’s funny how things turn out to be that way sometimes, Clarke Griffin is thirty years old, an accomplished medical professional who was set to marry her fiancé in a month, but the only thing she can remember as a moment of pure happiness in her whole life is scorching hot Virginia summer, being seventeen and lying on the hood of a bright red Mustang, holding hands with a boy who wore the same pained expression as she did, but there were flames in his eyes.

Her tires screech as she comes to a halt in front of her building, and her trembling fingers go white as they cling on to the steering wheel. She can remember it, even after all these years, even after thirteen years have passed, the smell of ray and the iced teas and the crinkling of fire. The summer when she was seventeen, lost her father and had a petulant glare whenever someone addressed her. The last summer of her life in which she remembers being happy, remembers it so strongly that tears come rushing down her cheeks and she feels like a deer caught in headlights because even after all this time, she can remember every single moment of the summer she’d named happy in her head.

She had run to Ark, Virginia once, she figures unlocking the apartment that never felt like home, she might as well do it again.

 

* * *

 

Her mother hands her the keys to Clarke’s grandparents’ house in Ark, studying her like her daughter is a wild animal, so ferocious in her pain that the only thing smart to do might be to put her down.

“Be careful, alright, Clarke?”

“I will. Thanks, mom.”

The path she walks from her mother’s house to the driveway is a long one, pebbles stirring underneath her feet, and all she can think about is the summer heat and beads of sweat glistening on her arms as she laughs like she might never stop. Dirt rises in the wake of screeching tires, the trees are green wherever she looks, and she is happy. The summer she was seventeen and lost and, finally, found.

It’s a long drive but she makes it by memory. Her hands, the ones she doesn’t dare look at anymore for more than a second or two, know when to turn the wheel right or left, until she finds herself in the Ground Road, in front of her grandparents’ house.

It looks just like she remembers it, yellow coats of painting peeling off and falling on the porch that creaks underneath her feet. She smiles when she realizes that she knows which plank to avoid as to not stir her grandparents when she’s sneaking in well after midnight. The only difference is, it’s morning now, the shiniest one she’d seen in the last thirteen years, and the sun is reflected in the windows, bathing the whole yard in sunlight.

There isn’t a wicker seat out anymore and the light in the lantern stopped working, but she could make it work. She retraces the steps she’d made years ago, and then takes a deep breath in front of the door. The wood is chirped at places, faded from the sunlight, and she finds herself smiling.

The door opens like it’s been waiting for her and she steps in. It’s the same. The narrow staircase leading to the upper floor, the kitchen to the left, the living room to the right. There’s still a crate full of umbrellas by the last step and she smiles at them. They’re ripped and broken, wires sticking out the fabric, but she’s used them once.

The kitchen counters are covered with sheets and the fridge is disconnected. She finds the living room to be the same, the couch and the armchair covered with white sheets as well. Two inches of dust on the table, where a stray TV magazine was left. Her grandma’s cross-stitching is still displayed on the walls, and Clarke sees the plate she’d brought from Paris as a gift, remembers how her grandma had tears in her eyes when she saw it. Clarke wanted to laugh just then because it was a small gift, it was nothing at all – something she’d bought in a hurry, but now she knows it’s not about the plate collecting. It’s about someone seeing something that reminds them of you. It’s about being in someone’s thoughts even when they have better things to do.

She’d cried a lot, on the way over there, and tears are clouding her vision once again. But she is pretty sure they’re the happy kind.

Clarke takes off the sheets covering everything on the ground floor, and she stacks them in a pile by the door leading out to the back garden. She might just burn them one day, if she finds the one who helped her burn things when she was seventeen. Otherwise, there’s no point.

There’s a stray broom in the pantry and she grabs it, swipes the floor in swift motions, sweat breaking onto her gray t-shirt but when she’s done an hour later, all she can do is smile and feel proud of herself. And then she opens the windows, lets the sunlight in and it’s like she never even left.

The kitchen table is just as she remembers it to be, massive and barely fitting into the kitchen, the centerpiece of the whole house. She ate breakfast there, toast and jam her grandma made, made excuses for being out the whole day even if her grandpa only smiled knowingly. That’s the place where the best ice tea was made and brought out onto the porch when cicadas were louder than your thoughts but you still wanted to smile. Little things.

Little things, like the little house on the end of the Ground Road. Clarke has to step on the tip of her toes to see it, but it’s there. Still blue, albeit a little faded from the sun, the same blue she helped paint it. The paint stained her jeans and, just like the people occupying the house, it didn’t want to leave her.

She wondered whether he would be there, or his sister, whether the house had been sold and they dispersed around the world looking for their own paths in life. Despite knowing it was selfish, she couldn’t help herself but to hope that things haven’t changed – that there wasn’t a new family in there, new kids whose toys were scattered across the living room. In Clarke’s mind, that little blue house belonged to one family and one family only.

There wasn’t a car in the driveway so she turned away, facing the freshly cleaned room which still smelled like dust and wood. The fireplace was covered in soot, but there were still frames with photos on it. She turned them over, set them properly, and then admired the pieces of her life she’d forgotten about. On one of the photos, five year old Clarke was sitting on her father’s shoulders and both of them were smiling. She got so much from her dad, they had the same eyes and the same smile, those important things. That day they were on a horse track, not that far from Ark. She was only little but she remembers saying “Daddy, I want a horse” and Jake rolling his eyes at her. She remembers being happy, too.

Then there was a photo from her parents’ wedding. The two of them stood in front of the altar, beaming smiles on both of their faces as they stared into the camera, practically intertwined already. They were younger than she is now, Clarke thought, and averted her gaze to the last frame. She was in the photo, seventeen years old, hair so blonde it looked like sunlight. But she wasn’t alone. He was there too, messy mop of dark curly hair, tanned arms and a smirk, his arm only visible as far as the small of her back. She remembers him teasing her for days because she’d blushed when he placed his hand on her back, and now she can see that her cheeks are red in the photo. But she’s smiling, and that’s enough.

The next thing she does is she goes upstairs and opens the door to the room that she called her own every summer until the last one. It’s still the same as she left it, and that has her taken aback with a hand over her mouth.

Everything is there.

Her paint-splattered jeans are lying on the bed, coated in dust. Next to them is her backpack, worse for wear because she carried it everywhere. When she takes a step closer, it still smells of gasoline.

Walking through her room feels like walking through a museum. It doesn’t feel like her room anymore, it feels like she’s invading someone else’s privacy. It feels forbidden, to walk around this room of a completely unknown person, to ponder over things like the grenade-shaped lighter and the sketchbook dropped haphazardly on the table. Because that Clarke was so different from the Clarke that she is now, from Clarke who is soft-spoken and calm, ambitious and persevering. That Clarke was wild and untamed, and this one feels like it’s better to join them if you can’t beat them.

Seventeen year-old Clarke would be so disappointed.

She flips open the sketchbook and carefully pages through it, like only one move might be enough for it to dissolve in her hands. There are sketches of everything – the houses in the road, her grandparents, trees, wind in the wheat, _him_. That was who she was, packets of coal and her faithful sketchbook she didn’t allow anyone to look at. It was private. It still is, she knows, so she closes it but doesn’t leave it lying there, like she doesn’t leave the jeans. She takes them with her into her grandparents’ room with a queen-size bed and the vanity her grandmother used to have perfumes stacked on. It still smells like vanilla, inexplicably.

Clarke flops down on the bed and takes a deep breath, taking in her surroundings, the laced bedspread, the huge windows and the sunlight coming in through them to rest on her bare ankles. It’s warm in the room but she’s not sure if it’s because it’s a hot summer day or because this house had so much love in one place it still hurts to remember it. But it’s the kind of hurt you can’t feel if there weren’t feelings before.

She stays there for a while, staring at the ceiling and wondering how it is that this is the first time in a very long time that she feels good. Calm. Her hands might be shaking but her gaze doesn’t drop to check if that’s true. She doesn’t have to.

She puts on her old jeans later, only to find that they still, inexplicably, fit. There’s a paint splatter in the shape of a hand right on her right thigh and she thinks back to the moment it was made. When she had a roller in her hand, working around the windows, and he thought it would be a good time to kiss her. Just because he wanted to.

The attic is filled with chests and boxes, some of them labeled, most of them left unlocked. It takes her a while to decide to open them, and by the time she’s gone through all the blurry and out of focus photos, she’s covered in dust that swirls around everything she moves in her way of exploring.

Because it feels like she’s exploring, it feels like she’s unearthing piece by piece of her family history, stumbling upon her mom’s teenage diary, when Abby was a brown-haired girl with a constant tan and the hugest smile on her face, finds her dad’s baseball cap and her grandmother’s knitted socks – the ones she started working on the day she found out Clarke is going to be born.

It’s the small things, and she’d got used to calling them clutter. There was no place for them in her minimalistic apartment, all shining counters and everything folded neat into respective drawers. There were family photos, of course, but they tended to fit the aesthetic of a busy young couple who didn’t have the time to dust around the frames that seemed to attract even more filth than anything else. And she missed that – she missed all the little things, like her first baby bottle she finds in a wooden chest by the ladder, her grandparents kept out of sentiment.

After a long time, sentiment doesn’t feel like it’s beneath Clarke. Sentiment and nostalgia are what made her try on the jeans, they’re what pushed her through the pages of her old sketchbook, to remind her of what it felt like to stain your fingertips with coal and then your cheeks too because you _forgot_. Now, she thinks she couldn’t even hold a pencil properly.

The Clarke she sees in the bathroom mirror when she’s done with cleaning for the day and she needs to wash away the dirt surprises her. It’s Clarke she hasn’t seen in a very long time, but she knows her by the twinkling in her eye and messy hair, falling out of her ponytail. She forgot about the time, forgot about the rumbling in her stomach barely sated by a PB&J sandwich she managed to whip up, and it doesn’t strike her as odd and wonderful until she’s taken a good look in the mirror.

She smiles back at the stranger, the corners of her mouth rotating upwards and the smile molding her face into something unknown.

_Welcome home. I’ve missed you._

 

* * *

 

The sun begins setting behind the houses in the street before Clarke takes another look at the little blue house’s driveway. There’s still no car, no sign that anyone lives in there except for the curtains and mowed grass in the yard. She rolled around in that grass, in the same jeans she’s wearing now, unable to part with them even after the shower she’d taken in order to look at least a bit more presentable if she’s going to get food.

Because the fridge and the pantry are empty, the last jam her grandma made long eaten in somber remembrance of Claire Hughes. There aren’t any crackers, either, and she’s gasping for any sort of food that doesn’t include peanut butter and jelly, long expired before her hands found it like treasure, and a bagel she’d picked up on her way over.

So she brushes her hair back, fixing her ponytail, and gets in her car. There are butterflies in her stomach as she drives through the center of the town, noticing which shops closed down and which are still in place. There’s still that old grocery store, fresh vegetables coming in every day – something that the neon-lit supermarkets couldn’t ever replace once Clarke had gotten to know the taste, and the bookstore. It makes her heart jump in her chest to see that it wasn’t brought down to accommodate one of those chain bookshops like Barnes and Noble.

The town still feels quaint, little, comfortable. Clarke’s bones find a rest just by looking at it.

She stops by a bar, figuring it’s as good place as any for someone to recognize her. And she’s desperate for some recognition, for some stranger’s hands that take her own and ask her how has she been, why hasn’t she come to Ark in such a long time. That’s home, that’s Ark. Not acquaintances that wave to each other in passing but friends who stop and chat, friends who are made fast and bonds which are sealed by the first lemonade on someone’s porch.

The bar doesn’t look that big but she can hear music and the noise of human voices filling it, and she barely registers the name (“Grounder’s”) before pushing through the doorway.

A thick scent of beer and peanuts waves over her. It’s hot, too - one of those places that don’t have A/C because it’s so urban and this isn’t an urban place, this is a homely one. She can see it in the dark wooden tables, booths covered with red leather, and a bar made for leaning on and spilling your heart out to the bartender.

People’s chatter carries through the room. She sees a group of college-aged kids playing darts, and a guy is messing with the jukebox near them, turning his head every few seconds to ask them if a song is alright. Because of course it’s like that. Because it’s Ark.

She makes her way towards the counter, feet steady as her head turns left and right, looking for a familiar face in the crowd. There’s no one, some new kids have replaced them, and there are new grownups too. She might know some of their names, but they’re not the ones that she’s looking for. Any old friend would do, but there are only two that Clarke is craving for.

It isn’t until she hears her name that she freezes, jolts of electricity coursing down her spine. She knows it, because how could she not know it? The voice is soft and it’s saying her name, calling for her.

“Princess?”

She’d know Bellamy Blake’s voice anywhere.

 

       13 years ago  

 

“Well, if it isn’t the city princess, gracing us with her presence! Ever your humble servant, your royal highness.”

Bellamy Blake is fucking curtsying in front of her and she thinks about how easy it would be to smash her knee into his nose. What a fucking menace.

Of course, he’s totally unapologetic of it – like she knows him to be. He’s still got that stupid smirk she’d like to wipe off his face any moment now, but she settles for words instead of fists.

“Oh fuck off, Bellamy!”

He straightens his back and then grins in her face, hands shoved into his jeans pockets and she knows why he’d told her that she was a princess. Compared to his tattered jeans and a grease-stained Henley, she, in her beige trousers and a white button-down, really does look like one.

But it’s only a moment before he wraps his hands around her, raising her off the ground in a hug, and she buries her face in the crook of his neck, sunlight and shadow switching as he spins her around. He smells like strawberries and car oil, and he’s Bellamy.

“Have a good trip?” he asks, when her shoes are in the dirt again and her mom is going to be so _pissed_ , but she can’t help but to smile at him, her head shaking as she nods that yeah, she’s had a good trip.

“I made it here safely, didn’t I?”

“Unfortunately.”

She punches him in the arm and he pretends to wince. He’s taller now than ever before, and stronger, too. If she squints, she can still see him when he was her height and the most working out he did was climbing trees.

But now he smells like car oil and his arms look strong enough to pick her up.

“Got that job in the garage?”

“Yeah. I’m still a rookie but Sterling’s a good guy.”

They are walking down the road, their feet taking them to a place they know they are bound to end up at. The Blakes’ house, a tiny, half-fallen apart thing that has Clarke’s favorite people in it. She bites her lip when she nearly asks about Octavia because she knows she’s going to see her in a moment and she doesn’t want her surprise ruined.

For a moment, it’s enough to walk down the road they played in just a couple of years ago with Bellamy by her side.

“How’s the big city?” he finally asks, his hand reaching to scratch at the nape of his neck and then it lingers there, perfectly tan like the rest of his body.

She thinks that the way his curls bounce with his step isn’t fair.

It isn’t. But nobody said it would be.

“Boring as shit. I couldn’t wait to get down here.”

And then she’s standing on the pebbled path and she steals a glance at him, but he nods, seeing her wide spread eyes and the excitement in them. It doesn’t take her a second to run up the stairs and barge in through the open doors.

“Clarke! Finally!”

Octavia’s hug is as tight as she remembers it to be, both of the Blake siblings so incredibly affectionate it took her some time to get used to it. But once she did, there was no going back. And Octavia Blake is holding her tight, breaking the hug only to take a good look at her face and then bury herself in Clarke’s hair again.

She is wild brown hair that catches on Clarke’s lips and the brittle laugh when Clarke tries to sputter it out. Her freckles are identical to those Bellamy has, and there’s a crinkle in the eyes to both of the siblings that assures everyone they are brother and sister in just a moment.

“Jesus, Clarke, how have you been? I’m so sorry about your dad.”

And just like that, with Octavia’s nothing but kind words, the moment ends and she curses herself for thinking no one would mention it, for thinking that she’s got this rage under control and it won’t resurface. But it does, Clarke can feel it gnawing on her insides and making her fingertips scratch for something she could break.

Octavia isn’t the shitty life that took her dad away. No one is, but life itself. And Clarke keeps forgetting that.

“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks, O.”

Bellamy swoops in, announcing loudly that he’s cooked in honor of Clarke’s arrival, and she mouths ‘thanks’ at him for getting her out of this situation. She doesn’t want to talk about her feelings, she just wants to bury them underneath thick layers of alcohol she knows Bellamy can get.

She mentions it when Octavia’s retreated to the bathroom, and Bellamy’s eyes widen over the kitchen table.

“Are you sure, Clarke?”

“Yeah. I want to get horribly drunk.”

“It’s not going to help.”

She knows he’s just trying to make her feel better and maybe some part of her, once, would have agreed with him. No, alcohol won’t help, and vodka burning down her throat is only going to tighten it more. Tears that come after will be both cheap liquor and feelings. And it won’t make her feel better.

But now, now she’s seventeen years old and she saw the coffin holding her dad’s body get placed six feet under the dark soil two weeks ago, and Bellamy’s caring only makes her snap out of the croaky chair and whip her hair at his face when he tries to stop her.

“Fine, if you won’t help me, I’ll find someone who will!”

She’s nearly at the door when she hears his voice and she hates the power it has, the power to make her stop and listen, even if her back is to him so he can’t see the angry tears welling in her eyes.

“Princess, alcohol isn’t going to help. But I know what will.”

That’s enough for her to turn around, no regard to her red and blotchy face and lips pursed into a thin line. Anger is somewhere in the back of her throat, an avalanche ready to burst through the doors, and it pains her to hold it all inside. It’s bigger than her body.

“I lost my mom, too. Trust me on this one.”

She knows he did, they did. The silence where Aurora Blake’s chatter should be is so loud she can’t think. And Bellamy has the same look on his face he had the day they buried her. Too proud to show his sadness, but it seeps through.

But this is her time to grieve. Not everyone can bounce back like Bellamy. Not everyone is as fucking brave as Bellamy.

“Fine. Pick me up tonight.”

 

She waits for him on her doorstep until he shows his face somewhere around nine. Her legs hurt from sitting and she feels exposed all of a sudden, bare legs in the shortest shorts she’s ever worn. They’re not kids anymore and that becomes painfully obvious when she gets into his car, slamming the doors behind her, and he steals a look above her crossed arms at her chest.

Clarke tells him to drive.

Inside, her grandparents are worried about her, worried about Abby. Inside, she can’t pretend like she’s angry. Inside, they know she’s sad.

But in his car, the shitty Mustang he was saving up for, she can look away and pretend she’s pissed off. In his car, she is Clarke Griffin whose whole life has been turned upside down and she’ll go to hell before she’s had her vengeance.

They don’t talk during the ride, and sun dies behind them in orange and red screams painted on her face when she looks at the mirror. It’s all miles of wheat and discarded cans of Coke along the road, but the wind is slapping her cheeks and her stomach twirls contentedly whenever he speeds up.

They reach the clearing after a while. Covered in dirt, there like someone had haphazardly dropped it, it’s home to only a couple of cans of gasoline. There are scorch marks on the ground, barely visible in the approaching night, and she tentatively gets out after he tells her that they’re here.

Her legs welcome the ache of finally stretching and she looks at the miles of open space with her hands on her hips.

“ _This_ is better than alcohol?”

He works around the trunk and gets something out. It’s only when he rounds the car and joins her by the hood that she sees he’s carrying canisters.

“Got something to burn?”

“What the hell?”

Bellamy shakes his head and sets the canisters down by her feet. Out of his pocket, he produces a box of matches with a stupid giraffe painted on them. She eyes it warily before finally nodding and going through her pockets.

It’s a drawing. Folded over a couple of times, ripped at the edges, but she carries it around like she’s going to forget her father’s face if she doesn’t.

She won’t. She’ll never forget it.

She sets it down on the ground and then he joins, throwing Aurora’s lighter and her plaid headband on top of Clarke’s drawing. He lets her soak it with gasoline and then his fingers wrap around hers as she holds up a match, the top already illuminating their hands with flame.

“Okay?” he asks, but his voice is nothing but a whisper and she thinks he probably didn’t even say it, but she heard him.

Everything goes up in flames. And a piece of her leaves with them.

 

 Present day  

 

Clarke thinks she was still frozen in that doorway weeks ago because it’s not until she sees his face that everything suddenly snaps in Technicolor.

It was like her limbs were numb until he threw the rag back on the counter and stepped around it to walk to her, close the distance of people and shouting, and press his hands on her back in a hug.

Nothing was real until then, nothing quite fit until she could smell his after-shave and strawberries and that soft scent he always carried around with him, the essence of what was Bellamy, the smell that stuck to her clothes and wouldn’t wash out until she’s burned it.

“Welcome home, Clarke.”

And she’d know that voice, even if it’s grown hoarse with time, aging like a fine wine, but it still makes her think of his stubble grazing her cheek, of his hand brushing her waist in passing.

She knew she was home even before he’d said it. She knew she was home the moment he uttered her nickname in disbelief and a smile ripped his face in half, making way for the dimples and the lines he didn’t have in the corners of his eyes thirteen years ago but he does now. That’s when she knew she was home. Everything else was just semantics.

His fingers are light on her neck as he steps away but doesn’t break away from their hug, looking at her with uncontained interest and a smile still on his face. She thinks that this might be a good time to smile but she just feels like crying. How was she able to be so numb for so long?

“God, you’ve grown,” he says with ease, eyes scanning her face, noticing the dark circles under her eyes and a watery smile she manages to come up with out of nowhere.

“Hi, Bellamy.”

“Oh, good, it’s you!”

He dissolves into laughter and then his arm is draped over her shoulder as he makes her sit down on the stool and joins her, the counter separating them more than thirteen years’ time ever could.

“What can I get you, Princess?”

His smile, when he looks at her, could light up the whole town of Ark.

“A can of gasoline and a box of matches?”

He knows what she means instantly, his eyebrows shooting up and lips parting in a silent ‘o’. _So, that’s how it’s going to be._ And she’s surprised to know that he remembers. But it makes her heart swell with affection and she props herself up on the counter until she can press a loud peck on his cheek.

She prays that he doesn’t push her away because that’s what she would do if a stranger that left you thirteen years ago comes back with a sheepish smile, asking for forgiveness. Because that’s what this reunion is, Clarke begging him to forgive her.

Only to see the unspoken forgiveness on his lips, only to find out that he wants to tell her that there’s nothing to forgive.

He leans on the counter with a smile, unchanged through years and varying degrees of separation. “I haven’t done that in a long while.”

“Vodka is fine, then.”

He slides the shot glass in her direction and she drains it in one swift move, back to her elbows on the counter.

She finds that talking to him is as easy as it was. This bar is his, no, he didn’t become a history teacher, never had the time for college (she knows he lies when he tells her about time being the main problem, but then again, he never liked talking about his lack of money) but Octavia did so she’s a teacher in Washington now, got a boyfriend and all, they’ll be there in a couple of weeks and she’ll be so happy to see her. The talk flows with ease, interrupted only when he has another customer and then he’s back again, beaming like always. The curiosity in his eyes doesn’t die down.

And she wonders what he must think of her, to stumble into his bar like that, no call, no nothing. Just like that, _hey, I’m here, missed you, can I crawl back into lazy hot summer days with you, can I still push my feet between yours to warm them up when there’s a change in the weather?_

“Congratulations on your award, by the way. We were so proud.”

She almost jumps from the barstool when he tells her that, his face lighting up as he speaks, but he does it like it’s just another casual thing to mention. For him it might be, for her it isn’t and her eyes are back to her hands, trembling where she’s enveloping her fingers on the beer.

Bellamy notices her looking in terror and then he covers her hands with his, shaking just a little so she would look up.

“Clarke, what’s wrong?”

_So many things. My whole life. Ever since I got on that bus and left, scared and so certain I was doing the right thing because I was mortified of sacrifice. Ever since that day, everything had gone to shit._

She doesn’t say it. Instead, she turns to look at him. Freckles are still smattered over his nose and his cheeks, he still has that glint in the deep brown eyes, and the curve of his lips is as teasing as it ever was. Begging her to kiss them. Like she was seventeen again.

“Everything?” she offers and meets his pleading eyes with a smile that is no match to them. When she was seventeen, she was tough as nails, a little rock you couldn’t crack no matter how many times you threw it on the pavement.

She cursed and shouted, everything to avoid telling him what’s bothering her. Telling anyone, for that matter.

Now she’s thirty and she doesn’t have the strength anymore.

“Shit, okay Clarke,” he frowns, focusing on her face and running his fingers through his hair. “Where are you staying?”

“My grandparents’ house.”

“You can’t stay there! Do you even have a bed?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Holy shit, Clarke, no way,” he shakes his head wildly and she remembers him fussing over her like this thirteen years ago, and it warms her heart. “My shift is over in half an hour and you’ll come with me. I can take the couch.”

“Seriously, Bellamy, it’s fine.”

A single glance headed her way is enough for her to throw her hands up in surrender. He’s mother hen-ing her, but she doesn’t mind.

They should be tiptoeing around each other, that’s the only rational thing to do, but he sweeps her in a tornado of affection and happiness, and she forgets to stop and think. Forgets to remember what happened and why they should be careful of their close proximity, with things so fragile. Forgets about uncertainty with which she had approached him earlier, wobbly legs and a watery smile. Is he going to pull or is he going to push?

But what she realizes is that things aren’t fragile. They’re as sturdy as they were the day she left. The only difference is in the lines they both have on their faces, from frowning or from laughing, but that sort of love never leaves.

She agrees to wait for him and when that half an hour is passed, he’s ushering her to his car and driving back down the Ground Road. He still lives in the blue house and nothing’s changed, not really. There are different things on the coffee table and the TV is new, but the essence is the same. Crappy couch and warm kitchen. The homely way. The Ark way.

She sits down at the table as he heats up lasagna he’s made, and they talk about Octavia, about the day he bought the bar and how happy they are that the old grocery shop is still on the same corner.

In her paint-stained jeans, she can almost forget that she is thirty and running away. It feels almost like it’s been a day since she saw him last.

The somersaults her heart makes when he smiles at her are the same, anyways.

The dinner is wonderful and the wine is even better, the one he serves her in a cup because all the glasses are in the dishwasher and is she sure she won’t mind if they drink it like this? She doesn’t, so they drop down on the couch, sliding into the same old positions, her feet in his lap and his thumb gently massaging her calves.

It should feel strange, but it doesn’t.

“So, why’d you wanna burn things?” he finally asks.

“Things went to shit in Boston and that helped the last time.”

The step over the silence her words elicited gracefully, thinking what had happened when she lost her dad and he lost his mom, but not saying a thing. It’s a whirlwind neither of them, Clarke supposes, wants to get tangled in.

“I don’t know what you’ve got going on but I don’t think it’ll help this time,” he whispers after a while. Her head is already leaning on his shoulder and his fingers are tracing her spine.

“I know. This is helping more.”

They stay like that, intertwined, pointedly ignoring their past even when it’s affecting their present. He doesn’t ask her what had really happened and she doesn’t offer. But his kindness goes a long way because Clarke manages to fall asleep on that couch, with his chin tucked into her hair and her body curling up against him, and it’s the first time in a very long time that her heart feels at peace.  

 


	2. All We Do Is Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: may involve teens kissing while "Because The Night" is playing on the radio. Just saying. And real angst so, enjoy!

\-   13 years ago   -

The wind was rustling in the trees as his tires scraped along the dirt road. Their windows were rolled down, allowing the summer heat to escape from where it was pooling in her collarbone, on his lips. Air thick with heat, she welcomed the draft with her feet on the dashboard, kicking the windshield along to the rhythm of one song or the other.

Clarke went through her pockets until she found a beat-down soft pack of cigarettes and popped one into her mouth, her lips curling around the yellow filter.

“You smoke?”

Was it admiration that she saw in his eyes when she turned to look at him with her eyebrows raised?

She said nothing, only laughed carelessly as she lit it up, welcoming the smoke she inhaled in the first drag. That was the best one, the first cigarette you lit in the day. Nothing else could quite match up to the scraping in your throat, a nice sort of pain.

“Give me one.”

Bellamy took off his right hand from the steering wheel and his eyes from the empty road as she passed him a cigarette.

No, it wasn’t admiration. It was something completely different.

She watched him light it, haphazardly and like he didn’t have a care in the world. He was good at looking like that, like a boy who’d already taken enough punches to brave through a couple more. He was good at looking careless and reckless.

Clarke took in the sight of his left hand, cigarette switched to it, leaned on the window. His fingers thumped along to the beat of the song, perfect match for her feet. He used to scold her for putting her feet up but now he didn’t seem to care.

When he noticed her looking, and when she didn’t avert her gaze, deciding to be a little brazen, a little brave, he raised his eyebrows and a smirk appeared on his lips.

“Think you’re the only one with secrets, Princess?”

She didn’t speak and he didn’t care. They were always like this when they were coming back from their field. Distant, teasing, cruel in the ways their mouths quirked like they’re looking for trouble. You want a fight? I’ll give you a battle. We won’t stop until there’s nothing but bodies on the ground.

But they had their two dead in the ground and suddenly, blood didn’t look quite as brave as it did before.

And no matter how cool he looked, hair disheveled because of the wind, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a smirk on his face, Clarke knew Bellamy. No matter how much he tried, and how much she tried, they couldn’t be cold and aloof strangers.

The sharpness of his jaw, sharp like a blade, sharp enough to cut glass, was nothing for her because she’d ran her fingers along it and her skin remained intact. If anyone thought that that boy, with his sulking face and a devil may care attitude, was danger, she didn’t.

And she had a funny feeling that he wasn’t quite so taken up with her persona these days. She swore like a sailor and smoked despite coughing, wore the shortest shorts in the world that made local high school guys wolf-whistle in her wake and tried to be pissed off at the whole world. She was angry, but it could never quite last when Bellamy took her hand and whispered “Let’s burn it”. The hottest guy could be pining after her and she’d still smile and leave with Bellamy.

A lot of her drawings were burned. A lot of his mom’s sewing was too. They looked at the flames and didn’t look at each other, taking a moment for release, taking a moment to remember their loved ones and what they will always mean to them.

Clarke didn’t think fire was cathartic before that summer. Fire was hot and it burned your fingertips just thinking of it, it was half-ruined houses and families crying on the curb. But then she realized what the other side of it was. Letting go. The swirl of the smoke rising high and away. Allowing them to stop suffering for a moment. Allowing them, without prejudice, to let go of the pain and think about nothing at all.

With that, it got better. If she wasn’t seventeen, maybe Clarke would think there was something strange in two teenagers burning things, but she was young enough not to care. Old enough to know that, as long as no one is hurt, it’s alright and she shouldn’t have to beat herself up about it.

She was young and reckless, and that’s why she placed her hand on Bellamy’s bicep, and ran it down to his fingers on the steering wheel. He didn’t say anything, lacing his fingers through hers. Neither did she.

The two of them just drove down the empty dirt road, discarded contents of someone else’s vacations rising from the ground in their wake, and pretended like they didn’t care about anything else except for their fire.

 

 

\-   Present day   -

 

She wakes up the next morning with the sound of dishes clanking in the kitchen. It’s a slow ritual, she stretches her toes and rubs her eyes, slowly taking in her surroundings. There’s a plaid blanket draped over her body, nice and warm and cozy, and she snuggles it under her chin to sleep for another minute.

The smell of coffee hits her nose and it’s so rich and deep that she throws the blanket to the side and tiptoes to the kitchen. She leans her head on the doorway as she observes him, still half-asleep but in a crisp blue button-down and the same pair of jeans from last night.

He looks different but to her, he feels the same. That should be enough to start worrying, but it feels good – something finally feels good and Clarke is not going to take it for granted.

Bellamy notices her looking and he turns towards her with a cup of coffee in hand.

“Coffee?”

“When have I ever refused coffee?”

She sits close to him at the table, runs her fingers along the scratches – some of which were there the last time she had coffee in the Blakes’ kitchen, and some of them are new. It’s still the same old table and when she lifts her head to look at the cup in front of her, she notices it’s the same cup too. Red, chirped near the handle, ‘good morning’ written on it in periodic table elements.

“You kept it,” she whispers, turning over the cup in her hand and reveling in the sloshing sound coffee makes.

His smile is slow, relieved, and she finds it easy to cover his hand with hers. He doesn’t flinch.

“Figured you’d want coffee when you get here.”

The way he looks at her makes her heart beat faster, something inexplicable in the gaze he sets on her. His hand is warm under hers and he turns his palm upwards to intertwine their fingers, his thumb brushing over hers in soft, slow strokes and she thinks he must be doing it without even noticing.

There aren’t flames in his eyes anymore, rising high into the air and taking away all of their pain like when they were teenagers, but there’s something else. Something she thinks must be even better because it doesn’t make him look pained, muscles involuntarily twitching to make place for a scowl. His smile is featherweight and easy, and he looks happy. He looks comforting.

“Thanks for letting me stay here.”

“Nothing to thank me for, Princess.”

She can hear that he means it, like it really isn’t a big deal, just a friend helping another. But it means so much to her, to know that she didn’t have to drag the mattress to the living room and spend the night alone with her thoughts. She had had enough of that in Boston, and only learned that her mind is a treacherous place.

“So, did you sleep well?” he asks, taking a sip of coffee and looking at her over the rim with eyebrows only slightly raised.

“Yeah, this is the best sleep I’ve had in ages,” she nods. And it is. Sure, the couch was and still is crappy and her lower back is killing her, but she’s pretty sure she hasn’t felt this rested in a long time, all thanks to him.

The Blakes’ kitchen is almost the same as she’d left it. Fridge is different, but the light brown wood cupboards are the same and she thinks she might find Cheerios if she opened the one to the left.

“Glad to hear that. Well, I’ve gotta get to work, but feel free to stay here.”

“Oh, no, I really need to clean up that mess,” she nods her head in the general direction of her grandparents’ home, and he smiles again. “But thank you.”

“Fine,” he gets up and pauses. His fingers settle on her shoulder and his lips settle on the top of her head in a barely audible kiss. “I’ll see you in the afternoon, then.”

They leave together and he waves to her from his car as he drives down the Ground Road. She waves back. The air is already warm and the sun is ascending high into the sky behind the houses, promising a beautiful day.

When she gets to her grandparents’ house, she stands in the doorway with her hands on hips, thinking what the best strategy to clean it up is. Everything needs working on, starting from the broken light bulb in the lantern on the porch and she walks through the house, jotting down what she needs to buy.

By lunch time, she’s already had the bulb replaced after a trip to the store, and she realizes that the windows really needed cleaning. The sunlight is beaming through them now, leaving a golden glow on the living room floor.

She leaves for her bedroom after a while, sits down on her bed and looks around. The shelves are littered with books she’d left her last time around, history and mystery novels that everyone liked at that time, but now she places them in a box that has written “Clarke’s room” on it with a sharpie.

The ceiling is decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars, the ones she’d put up with her grandpa when she was eight and she finds that most of them have already peeled off, but she doesn’t remove the remaining ones. She leaves them there, sure she’d be back one night, to sleep under the fake starry sky and pretend that she was on a plain where you could see the stars from.

Her fingers itch to burn the faded t-shirts with the lighter she still has in her pocket, but she fights off the urge. It worked when she was seventeen, but it won’t work now. After all, burning the sheets from the bed she’d found Finn and Raven in didn’t help.

For some time she rummages through the drawers, throwing out stray gum wrappers shoved there one fine summer day, and dividing things into those she means to throw away and those she means to keep safe in the attic. The sketchbook and the jeans she’s wearing still don’t belong to either of the piles.

When she goes to check her phone, discarded on the kitchen table yesterday, she finds a text from her mother and nothing else. No Finn (not that she would’ve talked to him), no co-workers who were worried about here, no nothing. Just Abby’s text “Glad you’ve made it, take a well-deserved rest, sweetie.”

Because it’s true – Clarke doesn’t have friends. She has colleagues and she had Finn, but she has no one who would go out for drinks with her on a Friday night in Boston, someone she could call when she was at her worst. Wells was the last one who cared and after him, no one else made any sense.

And then she arrives to Ark and Bellamy just takes her in, no explanation needed. Feeds her and sleeps with her on the couch, covers her with a blanket so she doesn’t get cold, makes her coffee in the morning and expects to see her the same day.

That’s enough to leave her feeling stranded and confused in the middle of the hallway, a box tucked into her left side. Her eyes burn holes in the wallpaper as she fast-forwards through her life in the last few months and struggles to wrap her fingers around a conclusion.

There is nothing as loneliness and nostalgia play tug of war in her.

She doesn’t get up for a while and when she does, she gets a piece of paper and marks down that she needs to buy paint. And possibly peel off the wallpaper completely, the rose-filled pattern already fading from years of use. Her head is spinning with all the renovations she needs to do but it feels strangely good, to know that she won’t be just lying around but actually doing something.

She spends the whole day without looking at her hands, not even as she makes dinner in Bellamy’s kitchen while he laughs at something she’d said about Boston being annoying. He tells her about his day, about the guy he owns the bar with, Nathan Miller, and about the two waiters – Monty and Jasper – who are actually very proficient in chemistry so they might make something out of it.

“Can you imagine, the whole state coming over to Ark to check out Monty and Jasper’s molecular cooking?” he asks, a smile playing on his lips, but his eyes are filled with dreams and she finds that that is what she saw earlier – no flames, just dreams and the comfort of hearth, if flames need be.

“I’ll have to try it and let you know,” Clarke replies and sets the plate in front of him.

She was never big on cooking but the moan he produces because of her gorgonzola and gruyere pasta makes her feel proud of herself.

“Shit, wow, Princess. Didn’t know you could cook.”

“Things change.”

The dinner passes comfortably, much like the one they had the day before, and it isn’t until he gets up to do the dishes that he notices the jeans she’s wearing.

His body is frozen mid-movement and his eyes are spread wide with amazement and surprise.

“Are those-“

“Yeah,” she nods, smiling.

Bellamy is looking at the blue mark his hand made and when he speaks, his voice is laced with nostalgia.

“I made that, the day we painted this house blue.”

“You did.”

The softness in her voice surprises her but she doesn’t dare move. There’s a very precious thing between them, and the moment feels so fragile it might burst in a second.

When he looks up, she meets his gaze unwaveringly, surprised to be able to do that because she can swear her legs are shaking. Her whole body feels like trembling from the tension packed in the little kitchen, between their eyes and hands kept to themselves.

And then Bellamy kneels next to her leg, a small crease appearing between his brows as he studies the handprint. He seems fazed by it, intrigued, something she can’t exactly place her finger on but it makes her tremble with excitement.

Her voice is hoarse when she speaks and he looks up at her, eyebrows raised. She manages a nod. “You can touch it.”

When he places his hand on top of her thigh, they realize that it doesn’t fit into the handprint anymore. He’d grown, now all sharp lines melted into soft curves and laughter lines in the corners of his eyes, but the warmth of his hand is welcome. It is so welcome.

“Funny,” he finally says in a quiet voice, left corner of his mouth turning upwards into a crooked smile.

“What is?”

“How, after all this time, I’d still do the same.”

His hand is warm on her thigh and he’s kneeling by her, studying her leg like it’s the single most interesting thing in the world. All she has managed to do is sit there, chin leaned on her hands, but he’s impossibly close, impossibly soft and impossibly quiet.

She tries to avert her eyes but it’s pointless. With him looking at her through his eyelashes, half-lidded eyes after a long day and a faint smile, it’s a long lost battle.

When she draws a finger under his chin and makes him look at her, he doesn’t protest. She doesn’t know what he sees in her eyes, but if they’re even a little bit like his, full of longing, she’ll take it. She’ll take the warmth of his hand on her thigh, she’ll take the other one reaching for her cheek, and she’ll take anything she can get.

She feels like something needs to be said between the two figures who are caught in the moment they don’t know how to behave in. There is nothing she is more aware of than the fact that she has no right to do this, no right to pull him in closer, to feel the weight of his hand on her thigh as he does what she asks him to, no right to draw him in if she’s just going to shut him off.

It’s a moment of insane courage, she closes the already painful distance between them. His eyes are clouded with slow-burning desire and she feels like her heart will explode in her chest if she doesn’t do something.

His lips taste like wine when she presses hers against them and, for a moment, they don’t move.

When he returns the kiss, incredibly light and incredibly slow, only the brushing of his lower lip against hers, everything falls back into place.

The softness of his lips is home and she can’t even smile about it because it hurts too much, somewhere in her chest, rolling to a lump tightening her throat and she can’t help the tears.

He moves away, cupping her cheek in his hand and looking at her like she’s falling apart and all he wants to do is help. She knows he does, and it’s the relief that makes her cry.

“Clarke, what- are you alright?”

Because thirteen years have passed but she knew she was long gone when he wrapped his hands around her in the bar, and she found herself thinking that she’s never had a home – that her home wasn’t a place, it was a person that went by the name of Bellamy Blake. And everything was back, like nothing happened in between – like Wells didn’t die, like she didn’t fight tooth and nail to get to where she’s now, like Finn didn’t happen either.

It was clear as daylight that this, that scene in Bellamy’s kitchen, was how she saw the rest of her life and the only parts of her past that mattered. She wasn’t running to him looking for comfort, she was running to him, and now she knew, because she loved him.

Thirteen years, a whole life’s worth of events in them, and she still loved him like the day she left Ark. The box, practical little compartment in her heart she kept under the lock sprung free. Her heart didn’t care that she called off her wedding, her heart didn’t care about Finn or her shaking hands or anything else she willed herself into thinking about – her heart knew what it was about.

And it roared victoriously in her chest as Clarke shook her head and weaved her fingers through Bellamy’s locks, pushing him closer and deepening the kiss.

“I’m fine. I’m great. I missed you.”

His smile was enough to forget a lifetime of sadness, and his back was warm when she placed her hand on the bit of exposed skin where his shirt rode up. She tugged it off in a second, pressing fervent kisses to his neck and smiling into his skin when a moan escaped his lips.

If she’d intended to think, her brain short-circuited when Bellamy trailed his hands over her thighs and lifted her up. It was muscle memory, to wrap her legs around his waist and press into him to see his eyes darkening, to know hers are the same.

“I need you.”

And like only one word from her was enough, they stumbled to his bedroom and fell on the bed, hungry lips and needy hands. She knew every piece of his skin and yet, she still ran her hands down his back, returning them to his neck to push and pull, not even knowing which of the two she’d been doing.

When he kissed the piece of her skin where her throat met her collarbone, her heels dug into the small of his back and she wanted to kiss him and ruin him, maybe both because her need was consuming and she wouldn’t stop until she’d swallowed him whole.

She should have known that if her fire was a blaze that went away as quickly as it came, his was a controlled one, steady and warm. He kissed her like he was still unsure whether she’d slip away, without the need like the one pooling in her lower belly. He had patience, and patience was a virtue her mind could never wrap itself around.

Every kiss he planted on her chest and her stomach burned like she’d been scorched but Clarke welcomed the heat. He was going slow, tentative and hesitant and she wished she could say the words that would make him go faster, make him realize that she’s not leaving him again. Not after everything.

Where Finn was calculated and cold, knowing just where to push to send her over the edge, Bellamy was as warm as the sun. His hands were steady wherever they landed and the kiss he pressed to her lower belly made her blood boil in her veins, made her whisper and gasp because this wasn’t sex, this was love and longing and coming back home to find that you were still welcome.

It burned like hell and it was pure desire Clarke could see in Bellamy’s eyes when she raised her head to meet his gaze. He was looking at her like she’s the best thing in the universe and seeing him like that made her want to believe in that, too.

When he pressed his tongue inside her, she couldn’t see anything anymore. There was nothing, just stars, a collision in her mind that wrapped her in light and she knew she was screaming and whispering and begging, raking her nails over his scalp because she needed more but it already felt like heaven.

She came with a whisper, her body feeling like it was lit on fire but the orgasm wasn’t an explosion, it was a small ‘oh’ and she couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t air, there was nothing except for his head leaning on her hip, his eyes studying her face, and she would have kissed him or killed him but it was all the same in her head.

Clarke was undone by his mouth, by his hands, by Bellamy who was still kissing his way up, lingering in places he knew she loved, and by the time he reached her mouth and let her taste herself on his lips, she knew she was gone.

He lies next to her, moving her wet curls from her face as she struggled to breathe. The world was a vivid place around her but she couldn’t feel anything except for his warm hand on her forehead. Was there anything else?

“I missed you, Princess.”

She knew. She knew but her mouth was swollen and dry and she couldn’t even find the words.

He seemed to understand, caressing her head and finally wrapping her in his arms as he draped a blanket over them.

It took her a while to find the words and when she did, they seemed so small and petty compared to what made her heart thrash in her ribcage and her hands beg to touch him.

“I love you.”

He smiled because he knew, and Clarke laughed because she wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

 

 

\-   13 years ago   -

 

The fire crackles louder when she feeds it faded newspaper clippings. It’s already hot, even without the flame, but she doesn’t move from her place in the dirt and her chin is leaned on her knees. Somewhere between the first day of summer and now, her shoulders got darker and her hair got lighter, both of which are now pulled around her face to shield her from Bellamy.

His body next to hers, both of their eyes trained on the fire, is a presence she can’t help but to feel. She knows when he’s there and right now, she doesn’t feel like answering his questions.

Somewhere between the first day of summer and now, they dropped the pretense, too.

The pack of cigarettes she carried around to feel cool is lying in a trash can somewhere, thrown out of his car window when she told him that it was stupid and she didn’t want to get lung cancer. He only smiled knowingly and got rid of them. She kept the lighter, his gift.

“Just make sure to add gasoline every once in a while. It runs out quickly,” he’d told her when she twisted the grenade-shaped thing in her palm, staring at it with undisguised curiosity.

“What, like you won’t do it for me?” she teased, eliciting a chuckle from him and a face-splitting smile. He looked younger when he smiled.

“You’re right, Princess. I’d do anything for you.”

The weight of conversations like that still sat on her shoulders, forcing her to buckle her knees and carry it throughout the summer and the impossibly long days she’d spend with him. He didn’t force her to look at him and she walked around hoping he wouldn’t, but she was always uncertain because she knew how wrong it would have felt for his hands to sneak under her chin and get those words out of her.

In her own little private world, she could come to terms with him, come to terms with everything, but she preferred being closed off to everyone else.

After a while, it just seemed petty. Her petulant glare lost its heat, much like her scowl, and with the flames anger slowly dissolved, too. The memory of her father was still fresh in her mind but she didn’t think of tires screeching and the car wrapping itself around a tree. She just thought of sunlight-filled afternoons and piggy-back rides. He was becoming a memory, slowly but surely, with every flickering flame.

She didn’t know why she wanted to burn all of those little things. However, she thought it might be because she was angry at him too. Angry at him for leaving her, leaving his daughter to fend off on her own and to make up stupid dad-jokes without him. For making her live without her father.

And that’s why she was sitting so close to the fire, flames licking the soles of her beat-up red chucks, curled around herself like it would help.

Because she was angry. And she felt guilty for being angry at someone who was her dad, who was dead, and who didn’t cause the crash.

If she’d only looked at Bellamy in the days of her revelation, he’d see it too and then he would get impossibly close and hug her and tell her that everything would be alright. Tears would come surging again and they’d make a red blotchy monster out of her. She preferred fighting the whole world rather than letting it see how much in pain she was.

“You need to let go of it, Princess.”

His voice was harsh reality and she hated him for always knowing what is going to help in the long run, even if it hurts like hell at first.

“Let go of what?” she snapped, but her eyes were still trained on the fire.

“Your anger. Helplessness. The feeling like you could have changed something.”

But it was her fault, in a way. It was her fault because she’d fought with her mom and her dad was rushing home to calm them down, to calm her down because she’d been crying and it was her fault. And she was so pissed off at him for making it her fault.

“You know what, Bellamy? Shut the fuck up. You’re not a shrink so stop acting like one.”

“I’m not a shrink but I know how you feel.”

“You,” she pressed out through her gritted teeth, eyes so focused on the fire and not on him that she could feel the tears welling in them, “don’t know shit.”

He had to grab her hand and turn her to look at him. He had to. Even if she would have preferred him to pretend like he’s too cool for her. Bastard.

“I’m sorry.”

Something inside her snapped, a monster she kept in her chest for too long and she jumped up to look at him from above, relishing in the moment of superiority because she was Clarke Griffin and look at how angry she was, how little pain she was in, and he was Bellamy Blake, all fucking feelings and sadness and he had _nothing_ on her.

“Fuck you!” her voice echoed in the field.

Bellamy was still down but he was looking at her as she waved her hands around, ripping herself to shreds only to prove that she had every right to be angry.

“I’m not fucking sad and fuck you for thinking I am! I am angry! I am so fucking pissed at him, for leaving me when I need him! I am so fucking pissed at you, Bellamy Blake, ooh, I’m so self-righteous and I’ve got it all figured out!”

He didn’t say anything while she jumped from place to place around the fire, uncaring whether she’d scorch herself, ripping, ripping, a monster taking her place and it was fucking hungry. The blood in her vein had reached its boiling point and now everything was heat.

“Well, guess what?” she finally asked him, hoping that her smile would be as bitter as she felt. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong about all of this because you have no fucking idea.”

“I do.”

“No, no you don’t! You were eighteen when she died, you – you had a job, and you were already practically raising Octavia and it’s not the _same_! How can you think we’re the same?”

There was a wounded look in his eyes and his brow furrowed, but the monster that was her, that was Clarke who just wanted to be left alone to be angry, only roared victoriously in her chest.

“You fucking got used to it! You got used to being alone, you got used to taking care of Octavia and you got used to – this,” she spread her arms, gesturing towards everything in this damned place.

And then he was up, a step away from her, so close his nose was practically touching hers and from the defiant set of his jaw, she knew he was angry.

“You think anyone gets used to this!? You think I want to spend my life working in a garage and providing for my sister? You think I don’t miss my mother? Jesus Christ, Princess, get a grip! Maybe _you_ can wallow in self-pity all day but the rest of us mortals don’t have time for it. So if I’m beneath you, what the hell are you even doing here?!”

There was a fine line she’d told herself she would never ever cross with him. And now she did it, and a part of her loved it, seeing his face go red and his pupils black in rage. It looked like his whole body was straining to inch him from her but this edge, this edge was what feeding the fire was all about.

And there was a whole forest burning between them.

“I’m here because _you_ brought me here,” she stabbed her finger into his chest. “You brought me here, Bellamy, telling me how this is going to help! But you don’t get the right to think we’re one and the same! You don’t get the right because you’re Bellamy Blake and you can do this shit.” Her voice finally broke and it was like fighting herself just to press out the last few words. “And I can’t.”

It was over, just as fast as it began. The monster retreated to wherever it went, only to resurface when she’d reach her tipping point, and all there was left was the crackling of fire and the two of them, standing like someone threw a bucket of ice cold water on them.

She just felt so empty.

He glanced at her, a look in his eyes that she couldn’t read, before he pulled himself on the hood of his Mustang and beckoned her to join him. So she did, the hot metal scorching her skin but she welcomed the heat.

They lay there, backs leaned on the windshield and a sudden gust of wind running through their hair. It was peaceful, at last. Nothing in the whole field except for them on his car, air thick with heat and no distance between them – even after what had happened.

She felt small and exposed. And then he intertwined his fingers with hers, not saying a word.

It was a small gesture but it was so big. And she squeezed his hand, the peace finally settled in her chest, mind devoid of all thoughts and nothing she could feel except a hot summer’s day and their two bodies on his car, holding hands and looking up into the blue skies.

There were many things they would need to talk about, but it could wait. Clarke propped herself on her elbow, mere inches separating their faces, and she looked at him. Soaked in the freckles, the watery smile on his face, his eyes that were now observing her.

Many things would need to be said but in that moment, while their hands were intertwined between their bodies, tired from heat, tired from arguing with no point, all she did was lean in and close her eyes.

She could already feel his heat, lips so close she could almost touch them with hers, when he grabbed her wrists and her eyes snapped open. He wasn’t angry, but she knew the disappointment when she saw it.

“Not like this,” he shook his head. “Not like this, Clarke.”

She didn’t think that there was anything wrong with this but she curtly nodded, returning to her place next to him. He didn’t let go of her hand and she thought that there must be something so inherently wrong about a boy not wanting to kiss you when he’s already holding your hand.

They didn’t speak until they were back in the car, fire extinguished. The only proof anything ever happened here were ashes on the ground – it seemed like years ago that the burned things meant anything.

The doors slammed behind her as she shoved herself into the passenger seat, pointedly looking away from him. They drove through the fields of wheat, July sun merciless on them. The roads always looked deserted this time of day.

The radio was playing Patti Smith’s Because The Night and she sang along to it involuntarily, the rhythm too catchy for her not to tap her fingernail against the window in accord.

_Take me now baby here as I am_

They were still trudging through pebbles and dirt and she wanted to jump out. Suddenly, his presence next to her was wrong. He breathed rejection and she kept replaying the scene on the car over and over in her head.

_Pull me close, try and understand_

She knew how he looked at her when he thought she couldn’t see him. They were seemingly inconspicuous glances in her direction while she laughed with Sterling and Monroe, sitting by the bonfire on the old football field.

He never sat next to her.

_Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe_

He brought her coffee in the morning when she slept over, talking deep into the night with Octavia. They’d pass out on the couch, happy just to be together. And then, in the morning, he’d make them breakfast, blueberry waffles and coffee for her – always coffee for her. A stupid red mug she brought over one day and forgot to ask it back.

She knew how he averted his gaze when she walked in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a tank top and short pajama pants. She knew how easily he blushed when she leaned over the stove and moaned in satisfaction.

So what happened with that? What happened with him being kind and teasing her and calling her Princess. Him kissing her knuckles when she punched a wall in a fit of blind rage?

_Come on now try and understand_

Clarke turned to look at him, hair perfectly messy, just the way it had been when they were lying on the hood of his car. They didn’t roll the windows down this time.

His eyes were glued to the road but she could see his jaw working and she decided to try again.

Her hand sneaked to his thigh, pressing on the tattered jeans he hardly ever took off. She liked that, she liked that Bellamy Blake wore old jeans and stitched them up when they started falling apart.

His head snapped to her, completely forgetting the road that glistened in the summer heat. Patti Smith kept singing into her ear and her heart was doing somersaults in her chest. Again.

Bellamy looked shocked. But he didn’t look angry.

“Would it really kill you if we kissed?” she whispered, fingers digging deeper into his thigh.

She was brave and she was reckless and she was seventeen, desperate for the boy whose hands smelled like car oil but felt as soft as the clouds above them.

The car came to a screeching halt in the middle of the road, dust stirring and swirling along the light in their car. Everything was in flames, so bright her eyes hurt and a part of her just wanted to give in to the heat.

His voice was a growl when he finally spoke. “It might.”

“What if I don’t care?”

She would have given anything for a smirk to appear on his face, but his expression didn’t give anything away.

“You want to kiss me that bad, Princess?”

How could he be this calm, how could he be this in control of herself when his lips begged her to kiss him and bruise him?

“Yeah,” she said, looking at him with an unwavering gaze. “I really do.”

_Because the night belongs to lovers_

His hand on his keys was rough, nearly punching them to shut off the engine. It died with a whimper, leaving them in silence, facing each other and bodies as tense as though they would march into battle.

There was something unforgiving and hard in his expression now, beneath the messy curls and the sunburned cheeks.

“Fine.”

And then, it was like everything shifted in just a second that took him to press it out through gritted teeth, like the thought of her physically pained him. His hands were pressed hard against his seat but his body was turned to her and she couldn’t care about his rejection when she had a shot to mend her broken pride.

Whatever that Clarke had been expecting, this wasn’t it.

He drew closer to her and then it exploded. His eyes, pupils blown wide with desire, inches from hers, his hands on the headrest behind her head, caging her. In all that heat, his body pressing against hers in the small car was nothing, no weight at all.

When he kissed her, it was rough, all clashing teeth and noses bumping, fierce and demanding. She returned the kiss with the same fervor, bit into his lower lip until she heard his groan vibrating in her mouth and smiled like it was both the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to her.

His hands against her sides were searing hot and she pushed him closer, hand firm on his neck and pulling back down when he wanted to take a breath.

It wasn’t kissing, it was something entirely else. It was rough skin and rough lips against a perfectly matching pair, primal noises as she dug her fingernails into his neck when he kissed hers, pulled him back for his lips to clash with hers when she’d had enough of anything that didn’t involve kissing him.

This was full-blown desire and for the love of her, she couldn’t understand why he hadn’t wanted to do this earlier. From his wanting lips and firm hands, she knew he wanted it just as bad as she did. Or more. Even more than she could imagine.

It was boiling in the car and she noticed it only as a nuisance, absolutely unimportant when his hands were cupping her cheeks and his tongue swirled on the roof of her mouth. When she let out a moan, he laughed smugly.

“Now can you see why I didn’t want to do this?”

He was still half-sitting on her, his hand holding onto the roof and straining his muscles – something that must’ve been painful and yet, he was just looking at her, a 1000 watt smile carved on his face.

His lip was bleeding and she rose up to envelop it with her mouth, licking away the blood.

When she flopped back into her seat, he looked wrecked.

“How long?” she finally asked, exhausted and tired of all this fighting they did when they could have done this instead.

He shook his head, curls bouncing on top of it.

“How long, Bellamy?” she insisted.

“Since the first day of summer.”

There was something wounded in his expression, suddenly so raw. This was, Clarke knew, Bellamy offering his heart on a platter. There was more strength in being so unguarded than it would have been in pretending like he didn’t care at all.

“Why didn’t you want to kiss me, then?”

It was cruel, seeing the pain inflicted by her words written clearly across his face and still pushing. But she was never not cruel and she needed to hear it from him. She _needed_ to.

“Because I’m in love with you.”

And that frightened the hell out of him.

Clarke straightened up in her seat and slowly brought a hand to rest on his face, something hopeful in it. Bellamy Blake, hoping that he wouldn’t be shooed after this. Bellamy Blake, thinking that all he was is a short-lived comfort.

“Good. Because I’m in love with you, too.”

When she kissed him, it felt like something unravelled between them. His lips felt like a fucking hurricane when he finally realized what she was saying, from zero to one hundred in two seconds.

It didn’t feel like surrender. It just felt like finally letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I discovered Halsey's Badlands while writing this? Can you can you? I seriously hope you can because Drive and Gasoline were my lifelines while writing this chapter. 
> 
> Also, a huge thanks goes out to everyone who took time to read this, who left kudos and to wonderful people with wonderful comments - you're all my strength when I feel like giving up on writing and - THANK YOU! <3


	3. Chapter 3

In the course of the next few days, Clarke throws herself into so many home repairs she can barely breathe when she resurfaces for air after long wallpaper-peeling-off sessions.

It’s tough work, sure, the wallpaper is practically glued to the wall after so many years on it, but she peels it off strip by strip. She’s not a saint so there’s more cursing than there should be normally, but when she’s done with the hallway her muscles are sore and she feels good.

The wall is still ugly so she considers white or cream yellow for it and decides to put off the decision until after lunch.

Bellamy is… Bellamy. They don’t talk about what happened and they take it slow, as slow as possible since they missed each other. Their resolve to take their time cracks as quickly as it was made, and he stops pretending like he’s unsure whether Clarke is just going to pack up her bags and leave.

She still hasn’t told him why she came in the first place, and there is some sort of weight pressing on her but they gracefully avoid it.

She calls her mom around lunch time on a Saturday and Abby is thrilled to hear from her. They speak for a while about what’s new in Boston and how Ark is holding up. When Clarke mentions Bellamy, Abby tells her to say hi to him and Octavia. If she knows, which Clarke highly doubts, she doesn’t mention anything and Clarke is silently grateful for it. Her mom also doesn’t ask her when she’s coming back which is yet another good thing because she spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at her hands that morning, only to find them somewhat stiller but not still enough.

She can worry about that later, she tells herself as she goes to the attic to fetch the ladder and then props them up in the middle of the hallway. White paint it is.

By the time Bellamy comes around to see how she’s doing, she’s covered in thick layers of dust and there’s white paint in her hair.

“I just spoke to O, she said to tell you-“he pauses, noticing her on the ladder and then he’s laughing. “That’s a really good look on you, Princess.”

“Covered in grime and dust, your favourite, right?”

“Just the way I like ‘em,” he smirks. “I brought dinner.”

Clarke gets off the ladder, excited about the food and doesn’t even remember him talking about Octavia until she’s well into her pizza.

“Oh, you said you spoke to O?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, biting off from his slice of pepperoni and paprika. “She’s thrilled you’re here and she told me to say hi. So I’m saying hi. Because you know Octavia, she’ll kill me if I don’t do it.”

“Still frightening?”

His eyes spread wide in mock-terror as he nods, gravely peering into Clarke’s eyes. “You have no idea.”

Clarke smiles, wondering about Octavia. All she knows is that she’s a teacher in DC and when she has time off, she’s running around the globe with her boyfriend.

“Wait till you meet him,” Bellamy says. “He’s huge and when she first brought him over I thought he was a thug. Apparently, he’s an art teacher and he worships the ground she walks on.”

Then he fetches his phone because she can’t wait a total of four days to see O and her boyfriend (which she tells him, rolling her eyes) and scrolls down until he’s found a picture.

“Holy shit!”

“Indeed.”

The man, Lincoln, has got to be at least seven feet tall and he has huge muscles, more fitting to a professional bodybuilder than to an art teacher. He is hot, but not in a way that Clarke would feel attracted to.

“Are you sure he’s an art teacher?” she asks, raising her eyebrow.

“That’s what I asked O. He is. And he’s a total fucking softie, I swear, Clarke, you’ve got to see it for yourself.”

Her mouth turns upwards in a smile and she finds herself really looking forward to it. When she was a kid, Octavia was all scraped knees and pointy smiles. She was tough as nails, much like her brother, only more explicitly so. There wasn’t a bully she hadn’t got into a fight with. Clarke admired her. And she was really glad she had Octavia on her side.

Otherwise, she would’ve been frightened to death.

“Thanks for the food but I’ve got to finish this today,” Clarke nods towards the hallway and then they’re both getting up.

“Sure, I’ll help,” Bellamy rolls up his sleeves and walks over with her. She’s on the ladder again, still bothered by that inch of uneven paint, and he’s working closer to the floor.

“Shit, this roller is a piece of trash. Where’d you get this?” he frowns at the roller in his hand, observing it from all corners.

“Home Depot?”

“Figures,” he scoffs. “Wanna switch?”

“Sure, yeah.”

She squats and he props himself on his toes. But in a second, she can see him losing balance and she reaches for his hand.

Unfortunately, his hand finds her thigh first, leaving a handprint of white paint on her brand new jeans.

“Couldn’t help yourself, huh?” she smirks at him but he looks flustered, rubbing his neck with his free hand and looking everywhere but her. “No, it’s fine. It’s a tradition by now.”

When she leans down to kiss the shy look from his face, she can feel his skin burning up.

 

 

 

\-    13 years ago   -

 

They’ve been together for five days when Octavia storms into the living room with two buckets of paint. It’s a weird situation they find themselves in because they’re only half-clothed and Clarke is on top of him on the couch, but Octavia’s deadly glare is ferocious enough to cut off any protests they might have had.

“Get dressed, we’re painting the house!”

“O?”

“The façade looks like shit.”

And then she’s out the door, slamming them behind her, and Clarke turns to look at Bellamy. He seems as confused as she is and, in spite of the fact that Octavia is impulsive, this isn’t her usual behavior. But a lot of things could have happened and the façade really looks like shit, so they exchange looks and shrug, figuring that it’s better to listen to her than to face the consequences.

Their clothes are thrown on in a hurry and, after a hasty kiss, they’re in the front yard.

Octavia is lying on the grass, eyes closed, and Clarke wonders if she really did take the news of her dating Bellamy that well. Because she didn’t seem fazed when they first told her (she only rolled her eyes and said “It’s about time”) but she’s grown moodier with each passing day.

And there’s been five of them. Five days which feel like five years. Not a lot has changed since the kiss, not really, except that Clarke is now aware that she can repeat it whenever she pleases and whenever she looks at Bellamy, wearing the same goofy grin she has, it makes her heart swell with affection for the boy.

He still makes pancakes when she sleeps over with Octavia but eating them is not the first thing she does in the morning. Kissing Bellamy is. And it feels weird, in a way, but it also feels good. To kiss him by the bonfire, despite the retching sounds Monroe makes, now that he’s finally sitting next to her, to hold his hand whenever they’re together, to just immerse herself in the happy little bubble.

And he never leaves her side. They’ve always been close, hands brushing and thighs touching, but now that he’s free to lean his hand on the small of her back when they’re walking and talking – he takes the chance and she revels in it.

They don’t burn things as much as they used to, that comfort somewhat forgotten in the summer haze and long, drawn out kisses they share when they get the chance to be alone, even if for a little while. It proves harder than they originally thought and Clarke can’t count the times they’ve been forced to delay going further than making because someone’s going to walk in on them. And it’s only been five days, but her body craves his and the kisses aren’t enough anymore – she wants him closer.

It’s completely ridiculous, she thinks as she ascends the ladder with a paint roller in hand, to want someone this much. But it makes sense.

“Come on, get to work!”

“Jesus, O, tone it down a notch, huh?” Bellamy teases but when his little sister punches his arm, Clarke has to smile at the way he bites into his lip not to let out a yelp.

They spend the sweltering hot afternoon painting the house blue, for reasons Octavia didn’t bother to explain, but it’s fun. She sometimes chases them with a hose when she realizes they’re not working hard enough and the ice cold water helps in the heat. They’re laughing at something their friends did and Clarke mercilessly teases Octavia about Atom, her boyfriend.

When Octavia goes inside the house to make sandwiches (“I don’t want you dying on me before you’re done!”), Bellamy drops whatever he was working on and rushes toward Clarke, pushing her down on the slanted roof under his bedroom window, and presses his mouth against hers in a deep kiss.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’m right here,” she smiles and returns the kiss, tangling her hands into his hair. Scratch everything, she loves his curls the most.

They still feel the need to rush things, even if they don’t mention that the summer is going to be over in a month but it still shows.

Bellamy’s hands are steady at her waist before he slips them to her thighs and she laughs.

“Your hands are covered in paint.”

“So?”

She purses her lips at him and gently moves his hands from her jeans, careful not to disturb his balance on the ladder. When they look down, his handprints on her jeans are blue and she wants to be angry but it’s hard. It’s Bellamy.

“Oops?”

“You’re not even sorry,” she rolls her eyes at his smirk and kisses him again. “I’m never washing them again, just so you know.”

“Good.”

That night, he stops his car in front of her grandparents’ house. The lights are off and she guesses they’ve gone to sleep but Bellamy and she still tiptoe to the porch where he steals a kiss from her. Her grandparents don’t know about them and she’d rather have it that way – she doesn’t need more sadness now that she’s found the way to be happy.

“Bell,” she interrupts him in the middle of a kiss and feels her brows furrowing. He still looks a little dazed from the kiss and it’s the sweetest thing she’s seen so far. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry about your mom. I haven’t told you that and all we did was talk about my dad when I know you’re in pain just as I am.”

His smile is slow, relieved, and he cards his fingers through her hair, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. She loves him like this and wonders why they even bothered pretending like they could be anything else.

“I know, Clarke. You don’t have to apologize.”

“No, I do. And I’m sorry about that day, I was way out of line but-“

He cuts her off. “You were angry. I get it. I’m here for that. We all need a little stress relief.”

And he’s been feeling like one for a very long time, Clarke knows. That’s why he didn’t want to kiss her – that’s why he didn’t dare tell her how he felt. Because he thought there is a big possibility that he was just that to her – just someone to vent her frustrations to.

“You’re not a stress reliever, Bellamy, come on. Don’t say that. Please tell me you don’t believe that anymore.”

“No, I don’t. You made that pretty clear that day.”

“Good. Because I’m in love with you and you shouldn’t ever forget that.”

“Ever?”

“Ever,” she confirms with a nod and kisses him again.

 

 

\-    Present day   -

 

When she drags herself to the bar that Friday, all she wants to do is sit tight and kick back with a bottle of beer in her hand.

At first, that looks like a probability. It’s a regular Friday in Grounder’s, with Bellamy manning the bar and Miller keeping her company. Nathan Miller is Bellamy’s friend, mostly quiet but actually really smart and sarcastic to the brim when he decides you’re worthy of his verbal skills.

“How’re the repairs coming up?”

“The house hates me,” Clarke mutters, taking a long sip of her beer.

That seems to make Miller laugh as he shrugs. “Yeah, the houses around here are fucked up.”

“I’m not giving up, though.”

“Nah, you shouldn’t. They appreciate strength.”

Worms don’t but Clarke doesn’t mention that. It took long enough to get the out of the pantry wall and she only succeeded in doing so after she kicked it down with the biggest hammer Miller could provide. Bellamy just stood there, worrying that she’s having a nervous breakdown after she smashed the wall.

It took all of her strength not to erupt into a victory dance right then and there.

“How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I’m just glad to get out of Boston,” she tells Miller and realizes that she’s telling the truth. She’s really glad to be in Ark, the slow pace of the town slowing her up as well – something she needed for longer than she would gladly admit.

It seems like the last ten years of her life were stretched between being stuck in traffic and wearing herself thin with exhaustion. This is different, but in a good way.

Bellamy gets two more beers for them, suspiciously glancing at the situation. And Miller talking to Clarke. Apparently, Miller doesn’t like people and Bellamy tells Clarke that she should be proud of herself about him liking her.

And she is, just a little bit.

“You guys okay?” Bellamy raises his eyebrows when Miller and Clarke clink their bottles together and they turn to stare at him.

“Yeah, man, why wouldn’t we be?”

Bellamy shrugs but he does lean to whisper into Clarke’s ear. “Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it right.”

They talk for a while, Bellamy still shooting worried glances in their direction, but then a soccer match starts and they become a tandem of shouting and cursing because-

“What the fuck is that tactic!?” Clarke screams at the TV. “Let’s not play defense and see how many goals they can score in five minutes!?”

The rest of the bar is loud in agreeing with Clarke but that doesn’t help her team. They lose four to one and she slumps back into her seat, cursing under her breath.

Despite her team failing miserably and the bar being as loud as she’s never heard it before, Clarke’s mind is a very calm and clear place right now. There were nights when she couldn’t sleep just because her thoughts were too loud, and they remained like that during the day. But now she thinks that there is absolutely nothing except shooting the shit with Miller and Bellamy, when he comes over, which is good enough to make her smile.

Miller does look at her with an eyebrow raised but she doesn’t get the chance to reply because in that moment, she hears someone saying her name and she turns around.

The moment she sets her eyes on Finn Clarke can feel her stomach plummet.

“Clarke?”

He’s saying her name like he can’t believe he’s seeing her. Suddenly, she’s painfully aware of a plaid shirt she threw over her shorts before she left for the bar and her dirty hair because she couldn’t be bothered to wash it if it’s going to get fucking filthy tomorrow anyways.

This isn’t Clarke Finn’s used to but that doesn’t make her feel out of place. It just makes him look stranger under the dimmed bar lights, in his crisp white shirt and suit pants. He doesn’t belong here.

“What are you doing here, Finn?” her voice is surprisingly stronger than she would have thought, considering that her legs are shaking in a pair of beat-up red chucks she unearthed in the attic.

He’s still looking at her like she might not be Clarke.

And then he gets closer and she, in attempt to get away from him, knocks into the table behind her and sends the beer to the floor. Before she’s had time to react, Miller is right by her side with a scowl that makes Finn uncomfortable.

“This guy bothering you, Clarke?” he asks, not taking eyes off Finn.

“No, it’s fine. Seriously, Miller. I just need a- a minute.”

Miller nods after searching her face for a brief moment, and then he’s on his way to the bar but he’s still looking over his shoulder.

“Like I said, what are you doing here?”

“Look, Clarke, I- I was worried about you,” he starts but keeps his distance, still studying her like he’s seeing her for the first time in his life. “When I came to our apartment, you weren’t there and half of your stuff was missing.”

Shit, she should’ve changed the locks.

“I went to see your mom and she told me you were here. There was no one at your grandparents’ house so I thought to check out here and-“

“You went to see my mom!?”

It wasn’t very much like her mom to tell Finn where Clarke was, especially when she knew what had happened. But Clarke was also aware that Finn could muster the most innocent-looking puppy dog eyes when he wanted to, like the one he had now.

Once it would’ve made Clarke melt into his arms but now, now she was just fucking pissed.

“Clarke,” he took another step closer to her and this time there was no back she could move to. She curled up her fist, ready to hit him if he came closer. “I’m really sorry about that. If you’d just hear me out because Raven and I weren’t even together, she got things wrong and I – I love you.”

He was so full of shit and Clarke was about to tell him just that, her whole body clenching, when she felt a familiar presence to her left.

Bellamy was there, wearing a scowl even worse than Miller’s, his brows furrowed, and he held out a hand to steady her.

“What’s going on here?”

Bellamy’s voice was authoritative and demanding when he spoke and Clarke saw Finn backing away.

“Who are _you_?”

“Bellamy-“

“I’m the owner and you’re harassing my patron. So I’d like to hear what’s going on before I call the cops.”

Finn took another step back just as Bellamy took another step closer, practically towering over him, and Clarke placed a hand on her friend’s back. “Finn was just about to leave.”

She shot a glare Finn’s way and Bellamy seemed to back off a little, returning to her side but still looking very alarmed.

Finn, however, had different plans and if Clarke’s stomach had dropped earlier, now it was as deep as Tartarus. “Please, Clarke, don’t do this. Don’t call off the wedding.”

Bellamy twitched next to her at the mention of the word ‘wedding’ and only then did she step in closer to Finn, her fury making up for the height difference that would’ve made it hard for her to look frightening.

“You should’ve thought about that when I walked in on you and Raven fucking. In _my_ bed. In my fucking apartment! And you had no right to come here. I don’t want to and I, frankly, don’t even fucking care what is it that you have to say.”

“Clarke, please-“

“Finn, if you’re not out of my sight in thirty seconds-“

“Clarke, I love you.”

Fighting with Finn, Clarke knew, was pointless. To her arguments he could only retort with whimpers. If that had been enough a long time ago, now it wasn’t.

She wasn’t even angry anymore, not in the sense of blinding rage that would have made her punch him. Clarke was just tired of this conversation, tired of his pleading and tired of all the fucking mistakes she’d made.

“I think we can still make this work. I’m sorry for what happened but I thought she knew and then she was there and- I’m sorry. But look at you,” he motioned towards her, eyes scanning her up and down, and she saw pity in his eyes. “This is not you, Clarke. You ran away from Boston and now you’re living here? There are people who love you, people who care about you there, and I am one of them. Please, just-“

He didn’t finish his sentence because right after she realized what Finn was insinuating, Clarke took a step back, took her thumb out of her palm and lined it vertically to her clenched fingers and swung as hard as she could.

He might have shouted out in pain but Clarke didn’t know because Bellamy’s hands were around her shoulders, steering her away, and Miller was back, shouting at Finn.

Music drowned out some of the noise, but Clarke wasn’t up for listening anyways. Fuck Finn. Fuck her life before and fuck him for thinking she’s lost it when she was happy here.

The night air was cool when she took a deep breath in the small alley behind the bar. Her stomach expanded where it had been clenched for the last half an hour and she knew it was only a matter of time before her dizziness erupted into nausea.

Leaning her forehead on the brick wall, Clarke sunk to her knees. All the fluttering in her stomach, all the relief, tightened her throat and pushed the tears into her eyes until she couldn’t stop it anymore. She wrapped her arms around her middle, leaning forward until her dry heaves became retching and she squeezed her body harder, holding herself back and trying not to collapse on the pavement.

Bellamy’s hands were curled around her waist when he realized what was going on, and Clarke could vaguely feel him pushing her hair back and pressing a warm hand to her forehead. “That’s it, just let it all out.”

Her hands came to wrap around his forearms and her legs went wobbly, everything numb except the sharp pain in her head and the throbbing in her sides from the violent retches.

After a while there was nothing to throw up anymore, only bile burning her throat, and she collapsed into Bellamy’s arms.

“You okay?” he asked as she fought to stand.

“Better.”

She wiped away the cold sweat collecting on her forehead with the back of her hand and moved away, wrapping her arms around her sides.

Bellamy was standing a few steps away from her, arms crossed at his chest and worrying his lip. He looked like was about to say something but Clarke cut him off, figuring that it’s better to just tell him everything now that she felt she could.

Her other life didn’t feel like a terrible, dark secret anymore. It just felt like past.

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “That’s my ex-fiancé, Finn Collins. We were supposed to get married-“tomorrow, she realized. The hall was booked for tomorrow. And it had completely escaped her notice. “Tomorrow, actually. But I walked in on him cheating me with a girl who thought she was his girlfriend of eight years. She was in India for the last two and he thought he’d broken up with her.” A snort escaped her mouth. It didn’t seem heartbreaking anymore, just really fucking absurd. “I cancelled the wedding, he begged me not to, and I threw him out of the apartment.”

Bellamy’s mouth was parted in a small ‘o’ when she took a pause to breathe in.

“He fucked up real bad, fucked _me_ up. I mean, it’s stupid, he’s just a guy, right?” Bellamy was about to protest but she cut him off. “No, I know. But it’s just that it shook me. I went to work the next day and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I’m a surgeon, it’s necessary. So I had a breakdown in the middle of the OR, my boss told me to take a leave and I went to a therapist at first. He helped. But then he told me to remember when was I last happy and I thought of Ark.” Her lips twisted to a sneer. “Ark and you, thirteen years ago, that’s my last happy memory. Really dumb, huh?”

Bellamy shook his head and walked over to her. He was hesitant at first, but then she nodded and he hugged her. His hands were warm on her back, squeezing her tight and suddenly, she felt relieved.

She carried this in her head for months, thinking it only served to prove how wrong she’d chosen when she chose to leave thirteen years ago. And it was hard, of course it was, realizing that you’ve spent all that time only to emerge unhappy but there was no one who’d understand what she was saying, no one to turn to, so she figured it would be better to just stay mum.

But Bellamy’s hands on her back were warm, firm, reassuring, and she buried her face into his chest. This time she didn’t cry. There was nothing to cry about, really. All the weight she’d been carrying was gone and it wasn’t until then that she realized how much she was holding herself back, how shallow her breathing was, how timidly the blood coursed through her veins.

“Jesus, Clarke, I had no idea,” Bellamy breathed out, incredulous look on his face. “I knew something must’ve happened but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

“I know.”

“You wanna go home?”  

She nodded, tucking herself into his side as they entered the bar once more. Finn wasn’t there anymore and Miller looked both pissed off and proud, but he didn’t say anything when Bellamy told him he was going to drive her home.

When they got back to her grandparents’ house, he made her eat toast and drink a glass of water before tucking her in. It felt strangely like being a little kid again, but Clarke didn’t mind. She’s spent so much time doing exactly what Bellamy was now doing for other people and it felt good to have someone take care of her.

“Bell,” she called out when he turned to leave, wishing her a good night. “Look, do you mind staying over?”

A slow smile spread on his face as he nodded, discarding his shoes and crawling under the blanket with her. She curled right up to him and he wrapped his arms around her, tight enough for her to let out a sigh and relax her weight.

“Thank you.”

Bellamy frowned. “What for?”

“Everything.”

His shirt was soft on her cheek and Clarke had to stifle a yawn, but he noticed.

“Get some sleep, Princess. I’ll be here in the morning.”

Everything around her was soft, his hands, his shirt, his voice, and she felt the corners of her mouth turning upwards. She was supposed to feel a maelstrom of emotions but there was nothing there anymore, the weight was gone.

And with that, she twisted a couple more times in his arms, finding a spot she could burrow her face into and it wasn’t before long that she drifted away to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Clarke woke up feeling unusually rested. It was early morning, as far as she could tell from the soft light filtering through the curtains, and Bellamy was still asleep. Sometime during the night, his arm landed on her stomach and now he was curled up against her.

In the soft morning light, he looked peaceful, even smiling a little in his sleep and Clarke rolled on her right side to get a better look of him. He still had a constellation of freckles over his nose and cheeks and she thought that it made him look impossibly softer, impossibly warmer. Bellamy she knew when she was seventeen was all rough edges, unnecessary defenses put up so no one could come through, but once she’d climbed that wall and he allowed her in – she knew what a mask all of that was. She was wearing the same one.

But now, in the soft morning light bathing her living room, he looked less like the teenager just as lost as she was. This was a grownup Bellamy, the one who came to terms with life being hard but didn’t allow it to ruin rare and precious moments of unabridged happiness. He still yelled at the historically inaccurate documentaries on TV, he still had a blissful smile and his eyes still looked hopeful but this time, the whole world was allowed to see it.

Clarke, on the other hand, didn’t know what she looked like. Months ago, she was the rough cut of a gemstone, dazzling in light and soaking in everyone’s admiration. She wore pearls and drank organic coffee in her minimalistic apartment. Months ago, she had Finn and a career.

What was she now?

She wore a plaid shirt, thrown over a tank top haphazardly, jean shorts and her hair was a nest barely contained by the bun she managed to scrounge up on top of her head. Her laughter was louder, fuller – she felt at peace. Vastly different than she had felt in Boston, working the graveyard shifts and compartmentalizing – constantly compartmentalizing because you couldn’t allow yourself hurt when you lost a patient, you could just hope you’ll do better with the next. She was a human when she came home in the evening and poured herself a glass of wine with her feet in Finn’s lap, but she was a doctor in the morning and emotions were a problem.

In Ark, lying on the mattress with rumpled covers and Bellamy’s hand on her stomach, she was just Clarke Griffin. And she forgot what that felt like.

Sometime between carefully untangling herself from Bellamy, as to not wake him up, and brushing her teeth, something occurred to her. It was funny, really, how Finn’s name crossed her mind more than once since waking up and yet – she didn’t feel anything. He seemed miles away, ages ago. It didn’t feel like he happened to her; it felt like he was a person in someone else’s life – someone who simply didn’t mean anything to her anymore.

Puzzle pieces she thought were missing in the big picture of her life fell into place. Because, she’d been humming while making coffee, thinking about how she’s looking forward to Octavia coming, wondering whether the Knicks will kick the Lakers’ ass that night, and considering buying a new dishwasher for the kitchen.

When she thought about her grandparents’ house, she thought about home.

She carried the two matching cups of coffee to the living room where Bellamy was still asleep. And then it hit her, out of somewhere, out of nowhere at all. Seeing him asleep, comfortable on the shitty old mattress and curling into her side during the night, Clarke had a revelation. No bells, no trumpets, nothing except something very small and something very warm settling in her chest.

She got under the covers again, setting their cups of coffee by the mattress, and had to stifle a giggle when Bellamy wrapped his arm around her again and drew her closer. It made perfect sense, to be lying next to Bellamy, and no one else.

When she turned in his arms to face him, he was batting his eyelashes open and sleep was still heavy in his eyes. But he was smiling at her, and it wasn’t that she felt like she never even left – she felt like she left but was still welcomed back.

Clarke broke the silence. “I owe you an explanation.”

“No-“

“No, no – I do,” she nodded, intertwining her fingers with his. Bellamy squeezed her hand, not moving his gaze from her face. “What happened last night, it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change _this_.”

She squeezed his hand and sneaked a peek towards him. His face was serious, but he didn’t look angry.

“Clarke, I love you, but I can’t be your rebound. If you wanted to hurt Finn by sleeping with me, if you wanted to take your mind off things – fine. But I can’t do that, not anymore.”

She felt her stomach plummet. Because no – this wasn’t what she’d been talking about. Bellamy’s intention to treat himself as a rebound – well, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Even when they were together thirteen years ago, he had problems believing that he wasn’t just a stress relief.

For someone so incredible, he could be incredibly thick.

“You really think you’re a rebound?”

“I – I don’t know.”

He let go of her hand to rub his face, rising up to seated on the mattress. His shirt was rumpled, his hair was messy and Clarke was still completely sure of being absolutely in love with him.

“If anything, Bell,” she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned her head against his neck. “Everyone else was just a rebound for you. It was always about you, for me.”

It wasn’t alright. It wasn’t fair to Finn, it wasn’t fair to anyone else who was ever romantically involved with her, but it was the truth. Because, kissing and sleeping and existing near Bellamy, it explained why nothing else came close to it. It explained why nothing else ever made as much sense as this did.

“So why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

He snorted. “Really?”

“Yeah, I-“

Bellamy let out an exasperated sigh and then pushed her arms away, getting up and getting away.

Clarke watched him as he laced up his shoes and tucked his shirt into his pants, all the while avoiding looking at her. There was something sharp about him, something she knew as Bellamy raising his defenses and she felt pathetic.

“Clarke, this isn’t healthy,” he finally said. “Ark isn’t an alternate universe where you come and go as you please. You can’t just come here and be a tourist in my life when you’re searching for some local flavor. I can’t do it. Not when I know you’re just going to walk away, and – don’t get me wrong – you can. You can always walk away. If that’s what you want, sure.”

“I don’t-“she started, only to be cut off with him raising his hand.

“Let me finish, please.”

God, she felt so small. So small and weak and angry, unable to do anything to stop him from walking away.

“You can walk away, and I’ll wish you a safe trip because I want you to be alright. I want you to be happy. But I’m not nineteen anymore and I can’t do _this_ anymore. I can be your friend but, please, don’t ask me to let you in again if I can’t keep you. I’ve done this thirteen years ago and I don’t want to do it again. I can’t do it.”

His face was the image of pain and still, the words died in her throat and there was nothing she could say.

Bellamy was right. Because he always was. And she knew that, reading between the lines, he was begging her to tell him she wouldn’t leave again.

But she couldn’t. Because she would, she would leave again and she would be terrified of this when the feeling finally settled. It was always too much to comprehend, what they had, and it seemed to ask so much of her and she was never the one for sacrifice.

“I can’t promise I’ll stay,” she finally said.

Pain flashed across Bellamy’s face and then there was nothing. Everything was blank and unreadable, but he had every right to keep her out.

“Alright.”

The doors closed quietly behind him and it was much worse than it would be if he’d slammed them. Bellamy angry was still better than Bellamy resigned. Bellamy who slammed the doors and shouted was the one who still cared.

And this quiet croak of doors clicking shut, this was blank space and resignation. This was the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know people in the States really love their football, but I'm Croatian and I don't know that much about it so - sorry? But I do know the frustration of your team playing like shit and screaming at TVs in bars. Which is something. Hopefully.
> 
> Anyways, hope you liked this one - we've got two more to go! Thank you for kudos and comments and bookmarks, thank you for being wonderful! :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some Octavia and terrible coping mechanisms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sex scene at the end so be forewarned. :)

Clarke rationally knows that she fucked up but it isn’t until she reaches for her phone in Octavia’s hands and Bellamy recoils before she’s brushed his arm that she becomes painfully _aware_ of it.

Wells taught her how to play chess and that’s why she can come up with a perfect analogy for this situation. Bellamy made his move, set the timer and now it’s her turn. But for the love of her she can’t think of a good move. So she doesn’t make one, and hasn’t made one since he left that morning a week ago.

Secretly, she wishes that it wasn’t that easy to ignore it completely. Because the two of them had fallen into a pattern of avoidance and resignation, worsened by Octavia and Lincoln’s arrival. They pretend like everything is alright, they still talk to each other but there’s always something left hanging in the air when a dot is placed at the end of a sentence.

Bellamy is everywhere and he doesn’t physically avoid her but Clarke knows he’s avoiding the same thing she is. She still can’t promise to stay because she can’t promise anything, even if there are days when his whole presence makes her want to say everything he needs to hear just so she could wrap her arms around him.

She misses him, even if he’s rarely more than five feet away from her.

That’s how they end up in Grounder’s one night, Octavia dragging them there despite Bellamy’s protests that it’s his night off and he doesn’t want to spend it in his workplace.

“You love that place, c’mon, Bell. For me?”

Octavia is still frighteningly cute when she wants to be and no one can resist her.

The first time Clarke sees her, right after she’s arrived, she realizes that the brunette in front of her is still her childhood best friend. Octavia has changed because of course she has, but she’s still funny, brash and her movements are sharp and pointed – she knows what she’s doing and everything about her seems to scream that she’s got this under control.

And when Octavia hugs her, Clarke can feel the same relief she felt when she was seventeen and her whole world was coming apart.

Everything and everyone has changed but the things that matter the most – they haven’t.

“Griffin!” Octavia shouts when Clarke approaches her warily, but it’s only a second before she’s thrown into the whirlwind of enthusiasm. And then the brunette smirks. “Or should I say _doctor_ Griffin?”

“I usually just go by Clarke these days.”

“Nah, I’m gonna call you doc and you’re not gonna protest.”

“Whatever you say, O.”

Octavia introduces her to Lincoln and the photos definitely don’t do him justice. He’s huge but he’s not frightening, not really. It might be because Octavia is definitely frightening enough for both of them, even without trying, but he seems really nice and something about him makes Clarke think that he balances Octavia out. She is wild and fast, but he seems calmer, more grounded. And he worships the ground Octavia walks on.

Also, he’s an art teacher and Clarke may or may not have blushed when he got ahold of her sketchbook and told her that her drawings are seriously good.

Not that she draws anymore. But it’s still good to hear it.

And so the night at Grounder’s is fun, easy-going, with Octavia teasing Clarke and Bellamy intermittently and Lincoln rolling his eyes like he got used to his girlfriend’s antics but he still finds it unbearably charming.

If Octavia notices Bellamy jerking away from Clarke, she doesn’t comment on it. Her sharp gaze is focused on Monty and Miller, talking over the counter, and then she cracks a wicked grin.

“Let’s go make fun of them.”

Clarke should feel too old for that, but she doesn’t. Octavia tugs on her shirt and grabs Bellamy’s hand, and Clarke can only roll her eyes at the brunette’s brother – only to see him doing the same.

It’s easy when they forget they should be avoiding each other. It almost feels like they’re friends again.

And it’s not that they aren’t friends anymore, Clarke thinks as she sits on the barstool next to Bellamy – still aware of where her body is compared to his (two inches of space between them is two inches too many), it’s just that something’s shifted.

Octavia treats everyone to a drink and Clarke sips on her vodka juice with obvious disinterest, training her gaze on the bottles behind the bar – rather than on Bellamy who fidgets constantly next to her. His hair is messy and there’s a stray curl on his eyebrow and she wants to brush it away. She doesn’t have the right anymore.

“So, you two gonna pout some more or can we finally have fun?” Octavia breaks the silence, a shark-like grin on her face after she’s made Miller take a break. Patrons have trickled out and there’s maybe twenty people left behind.

“I need to man the bar, O,” Bellamy’s voice is a mixture of exasperation and fondness for his baby sister. Soft and exhausted alike.

“Yeah, but Clarke doesn’t. Right, Clarke?”

“Uh-“

“Great!” Octavia claps her hands together and then nods towards the jukebox when she catches Lincoln’s eye. “Something fun, okay?”

Lincoln seems to get the hint, sliding off of the barstool and pressing a couple of buttons on the retro jukebox before the regular party anthem starts playing.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Because that’s what Octavia’s about and Clarke knows it, remembers their dancing parties and singing into hairbrushes, pouting in front of the mirrors with crappy dance moves.

She grabs Clarke’s hand, spilling what’s left of the vodka on the counter and Clarke pauses, glancing at the counter and then at Bellamy, who makes a dismissive motion with his hand. “Go, have fun.”

So she nods and allows Octavia to drag her to the clearing between booths and the counter. It’s only jumping at first and Clarke is hesitant – she hasn’t done this in a long while and somewhere between seventeen and thirty – she’s become more self-conscious.

“Come oooon, Clarke!”

And Clarke tries to, she really does, but she can only shuffle her feet and swing her hips a bit to left and right which is just downright pathetic compared to Octavia who is a river in motion, fast and ruthless and alluring – part human, part hurricane.

Octavia lets her go after another song and Clarke leans on the counter, watching Lincoln take it from her. They’re unnaturally beautiful and she’s mesmerized.

“Vodka. Squared,” she tells Bellamy who raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment on it.

She tells him to keep them coming. Mostly, she just wants to get really drunk but she also doesn’t want to talk to him and as long as she’s pensively tracing her finger over the rim of the shot glass she doesn’t have to. 

When the fourth vodka’s gone down her throat, Clarke feels a restless sort of energy buzzing through her. The world is fuzzier, softer, yellow light dim enough to make you feel disembodied, and she turns around to see Octavia grinning in the direction of the end of the counter.

Clarke thinks her vertebrae must’ve cracked because she snapped her head so fast in the same direction Octavia’s been grinning, and it takes her a while to realize what she’s looking at.

It’s Bellamy, because of course it is – Octavia doesn’t grin like that just for anyone, and he’s talking to the most supermodel-like girl Clarke’s seen in the whole of Ark. Her limbs just stretch for miles and, despite the distance, Clarke sees her lips are blood red as she sneaks coy glances at Bellamy.

Something heavy settles in her stomach and then she’s pushing away from the counter, trying to catch her balance, and dragging Octavia towards the bar. There are glasses and beer bottles everywhere but the music is loud enough to stifle them breaking on the wooden floor as she pushes up on it, wobbly on her feet.

“Are we dancing on the bar?” Octavia grins.

“Yup,” Clarke nods, popping the ‘p’ in her mouth and then she has settles her hands on the small of Octavia’s back, trying to get the brunette to imitate her own gyrating hips but Octavia’s laughing, she’s laughing so much Clarke has to hold her so she doesn’t fall.

“I see how it is,” she manages to press out between bouts of laughter. “Doctor Clarke Griffin wants to dance on the bar.”

And then they get shameless, much to everyone’s amusement. Music changes to something dirtier, something that would’ve made Clarke blush if the vodka hadn’t hit her so bad, and their moves correspond to it. There is a lot of hips and boobs and legs as Octavia drops down low, shimmying back up again and motioning for Clarke to do the same.

Her hair is down, her brain has short-circuited and vodka makes her want to be really, really horrible.

Whoops come from the crowd, someone’s urging them to shake it, but Clarke can’t see the faces – they’re just bright and colorful spots everywhere around her and her head is spinning, spinning, maddeningly dizzy and she’s on top of the world.

 

* * *

 

She comes down from the high in the morning with a persistent thudding in her head, louder than the bass in dirty remixes she danced to with Octavia, and not a bone in her body wants to move.

Everything is a mess. Her thoughts are chaos, slippery, escaping her whenever she thinks she’s got them under control, and the searing pain creates bright light just under her eyelids. It hurts. Everything hurts.

“Clarke?”

She lets out an oomph and tries to move but her hands are heavy and her head threatens to increase the pain if she dares inch.

“Clarke, your phone is ringing – shut it off, I’ll murder you.”

It’s Octavia, her voice coming from somewhere – Clarke can’t discern. But she hears the default ringtone, far far away and flutters her eyelids open.

The phone keeps ringing as she stumbles out of the bed and she’s only vaguely certain she’s in Bellamy’s room with no idea as to how she got there. Octavia is sprawled on the covers next to her, hair covering half of her face and she groans when Clarke hits the nightstand with an audible thud, her ankle lighting up in pain.

“Fuck!”

“No. Loud.”

Octavia throws a pillow over her head and then she’s snoring again while Clarke’s trying not to swear so loud because it hurts her too.

She hears the footsteps approaching her as she opens the door and takes a peak down the hallway. Sure enough, Bellamy is there, Clarke’s phone pressed to her ear as a crease forms between his brows.

“Prin- Clarke, it’s – it’s for you.”

He hands her the phone without so much as saying who it is and Clarke lowers down the volume before answering it.

“It’s Clarke.”

“Oh, Clarke, honey, thank God you answered!” her mom chimes and her voice only shoots a lightning of pain through Clarke’s head. “I just got off the phone with Thelonious, he’s wondering when you’re coming.”

“This couldn’t wait?”

“Well, you _do_ have to go back to work someday,” Abby says and Clarke can practically hear the frown in her voice. “How are you?”

“Fine, yeah – I’m good. Octavia’s here so we were out and-“she trails off, kicking the wall lightly with her toe as she tries not to sound hungover but fails. “Mom, did you tell Finn I’m here?”

Bellamy winces, a fleeting expression of worry on his face in one second and then nothing in the other. He’s still standing there, worrying his lip and looking at her like he has something to say. It’s going to be worse than talking to her mom, that she knows for sure.

“Clarke, I’m sorry but he came over and he sounded so worried about you. I thought you might want to talk with him, given the situation and the wedding and-“

“Fuck the wedding.” Abby’s quiet, doesn’t even scuttle for words. “You can tell Thelonious I’ll get back to him in a couple of days.”

“Clarke-“

“Bye, mom.”

Clarke ends the call, shoving the phone into her pocket and then turns to look at Bellamy. She’s pissed for three very distinctive reasons: her mom telling Finn where he can find her, the throbbing headache she’s sporting and Bellamy.

He opens his mouth to speak but she interjects him. “No, I don’t want to hear it. Whatever it is that you have to say, it’s going to have to wait.”

Bellamy seems a bit taken aback but he doesn’t actually say anything so Clarke sidesteps him, shoving him lightly and continuing down the stairs. There’s bound to be a coffee cup with her name written on it.

Over the breakfast, during which Octavia stalked down, announcing that she hates the whole world today, and promptly fell asleep on the table again, Clarke checks her email. There’s the usual shit, newsletters and spam mails promising her the time of her life with a date of her own choosing, but there are three other important emails.

The first one is from her landlord, and the woman wrote her a short email about her lease running out at the end of the month. If she wants to stay she can sign another contract but otherwise, could Clarke please move out by the tenth of September?

The second email is from Thelonious Jaha, address registered with the hospital, and it’s a lengthy one. He starts off by saying he’s hoping she’s feeling better and ends with an ultimatum of sorts – if she’s not there by the end of the month, she’s losing her job.

Wells and his dad couldn’t be more different.

The third one is the one that makes her stomach clench and she nearly spits out the sip of coffee she’d taken into her mouth. The sender is Raven Reyes, not that Clarke has any idea why that woman would be sending her an email, but it’s pretty clear she wants the two of them to meet up.

It’s pretty clear what Clarke has to do and she somberly announces it when Lincoln is propping Octavia up and Bellamy’s making the waffles in the Blakes’ kitchen. It would be a beautiful morning, if the sunlight didn’t hurt Clarke’s eyes so much.

“I’m leaving.”

A lot of things happen at the same time after she says it. Octavia, for one, shouts out a very loud “What!?” that actually physically pains Clarke. She’s spreading her eyes so wide Clarke thinks they might just fall out. Lincoln looks like someone hit him with a wet rag over his head.

And Bellamy – Bellamy says nothing.

What’s funny is how his silence seems to be louder than Octavia’s questions. His back is turned to Clarke but she still searches his grey Henley for clues, falling short of anything but his tense shoulders and bowed head.

He says nothing and it’s still loud enough for Clarke to hear what he wants to say.

She promises Octavia she’d call and come to DC when she has the time, and Lincoln invites her to his exhibit in October to seal the deal. They’re kind and they are the people she sees sticking around. In all honesty, no one else did.

Bellamy leaves just as she’s about to walk through the door and it isn’t until she’s packed her things into the car that he crosses the street, hands shoved into his pockets and gaze fixed firmly on her.

It might be the last time she sees him and Clarke feels her breath catch in her throat, a sudden maelstrom of emotions she wants to express but can’t find the way as the sunlight illuminates his face and leaves his eyes with amber glow.

He’s trying on different expressions but fails. His resolve is cracking in front of her eyes as he comes to stand inches from her, a safe distance that still means he’s close but it’s like an ocean separates them.

Clarke wants to hold his hand but settles for toying with her car keys. She wants to kiss him but purses her lips instead. There are tears threatening to spill from her eyes and she only averts her gaze because yes, she had the chance and she blew it. It feels unfair to keep him from being happy.

They stand there, OK Corral of their own making. Miles of scorched earth, dirt filtering in the sunlight, fire that could have consumed the world now nothing more than a spiteful flame, burning on and on just because it’s too stubborn to give up.

In a different life, holding his hand wouldn’t seem impossible. In a different life, he’d wrap his arm around her waist and tuck her into his side as they reminisced their glory days. She’d probably promise him that the days ahead of them would be even better than those they’ve left behind, and he would have kissed her cheek – skin burning wherever he touched her.

But in this life, they’re standing in the driveway of her grandparents’ house and they are two people who are begging the world to let them become strangers and start anew, without the sour memories of things that have happened and things that could have happened weighing on them.

In this life, he shifts his weight and looks at her through his eyelashes, his voice hoarse when he speaks. “It’s probably for the best.”

Her mind is grasping for sense in his words but it fails. She nods.

“I hope you’ll be happy,” she whispers, fingers trembling when she brushes them against his. Something very important leaves them, something that rips itself with brute force from her and she wants to get it back but there’s nothing where that something once stood.

Clarke thinks it might be love. Or sadness. It’s all the same to her.

She means no harm with his words and he seems to understand, the smallest of smiles on his face.

“I hope you’ll be happy, too.”

When she revs the engine and takes a look in the mirror, he’s still standing in her driveway and she knows he’s as wrecked as she is.

She doesn’t stop the car.

But she does stop in the middle of the road, safe distance from Ark – the town a glimmering mirage in the early afternoon heat, and her feet are wobbly as she stalks into the cornfield.

She stops the car there and she screams, screams until her throat is raw and until there’s nothing anymore except the gaping hole where her heart once stood. She screams until she can’t even remember her name anymore and until the wind knows all of her secrets.

She is thirty years old but there is something that begs her to let her body crumple on the ground. This fighting is what she’s tired of – waging wars and losing battles when there was nothing to spill the blood about in the first place.

Boston is waiting for her but there isn’t a single bone in her body that hasn’t given up yet.

 

 

 

-          13 years ago    -

 

Bellamy is waiting for her as she crosses the street and runs over to the little blue house. The paint didn’t even dry yet but it still looks like the prettiest thing in the whole neighborhood. She tells him that as he wraps his arms around her, drawing her closer into a hug and burying his nose in her hair.

“God, I missed you.”

“You’ve seen me just yesterday,” she laughs and then shoves him lightly to get into the house.

They are finally alone and that might be the reason why she’s even there in the first place. Octavia is sleeping over at her friend’s and the moment she told them that, there were gazes exchanged and a plan had been set in motion.

Bellamy doesn’t even make it to the living room before she pushes him into a wall in the hallway and slams her lips against his. He doesn’t move and she’s worried that he’s going to back out – the scene in the field very clear in her mind, replaying itself over and over again before he reaches his hands to cradle her head.

“Let’s go slow, okay?”

She can’t help but to laugh at that because she knows she’s not his first – they didn’t explicitly talk about it and she isn’t jealous, but she wasn’t exactly expecting him to be the one who wants to go slow.

“Screw slow,” she whispers into his neck, planting open-mouthed kisses and grinning into his skin when she finds a spot that makes him let out a breathy moan. “I _want_ you.”

They’ve waited for too long, she whispers into his mouth when he presses his lips on hers, infinitely soft, infinitely calm. And she wants him, has wanted him ever since he first called her a city princess that summer.

He steers her into the living room and she pulls him down on the couch before he can protest. His weight feels good when her hipbones brush his and all she can think about is the heat he’s radiating when he smiles at her and how good he feels on top of her.

It’s the kissing that drives her crazy. He draws it out, curling his tongue against hers, sucking on her lower lip and never even flinching when she bites down into his until she can taste copper and rust.

“Are you in a rush?” he finally asks, exasperation clear in his voice and she nods. “There’s no need to be, we’ve got the place to ourselves.”

Clarke knows, she’s aware of it, but she’s thirsty. Thirsty for his lips on her neck, sucking on her collarbone and this is too slow, this is too long and she wants more with such intensity that it takes him aback when she tugs his shirt over his head and drops it on the floor.

He’s all bronze and freckles and muscles and she presses a kiss to his collarbone, as thirsty and as wanting as she is. “I want more, Bell.”

_I want more, I want more, just this will never be enough._

“ _Please_ ,” it comes out as a ragged breath and he looks at her for a very long time before taking her shirt off. There’s something puzzled in his eyes but it’s gone the moment she unclasps her bra buckle, throwing the pink lacy thing to the side.

His pupils are blown wide with want and she laughs as he takes in the sight of her. She doesn’t feel small, she feels like she’s the universe and he’d been allowed to see the whole of it.

Blood is trickling down his chin and licks it, kisses him until she’s dizzy and he looks lost. Only then does she wrap her hand around his, safely placed on her side, and drags it to her jeans.

He doesn’t go faster, doesn’t rush it no matter how many times she tells him to. His fingers are skilled with her buttons and hers are still shaky but strong-willed with his zipper. There’s a contrast between them, between her raw need and the want for more and his desire, a persistent flame that just keeps burning with the same spark while a fuse blows in her.

“Come on, Bellamy, please.”

He kisses her cheeks and her lips. His mouth sucks on her pulse point, leaving marks she might not get rid of but that’s good, that she’s not complaining about. Morbidly slowly, he trails his lips down her body, kissing every bit of skin he can find like this is the first and the last time he’s doing it and she doesn’t know why.

When he finally reaches her lower belly, his kisses wet and his hands firm on her sides, it doesn’t even take her long to come because everything’s gone dark and she’s overcome with lust she hasn’t even known until then.

All she can say is please, over and over again, first in her head and then it’s escaping her lips and she’s repeating it until he finally hears. His lips are red and swollen and her hands are already shaking when she guides him in and thrusts, unable to wait.

They unravel, they come absolutely undone with throats to the stars and moans pressed into each other’s lips as he still holds her hand and kisses her and tells her how much he loves her. Her body vibrates with his confession until his voice is ragged and hoarse, breathing into her collarbone when they separate.

I love you I love you I love you, like a whisper, like a bang, like a shout and like the fireworks on Fourth of July, woven into her skin when he kisses her, quiet and loud at the same time.

And then she understands why he kissed her so much, why his lips trailed her body like a map leading to the treasure, why his fingers wanted to catalogue everything they could feel.

They lay on the couch, her fingers carding through his wet hair, in the spot where the sun couldn’t reach them and where it was almost easy to breathe. Everything about this day promised to be beautiful and she held him in her arms, terrified.

Because boys like Bellamy, they had thirsty lips and so much hunger it threatened to swallow girls whole. They were fast and rough, looking for comfort and not looking for love.

And Bellamy, with his hands that sent jolts of electricity down her spine, with his lips that craved her – Clarke, but in the way that showed how much he loved her, Bellamy made her tremble in fear. Because he loved her, and she should have known that from the very first time he kissed her. She should have known but she was fierce and wanting, blind for anything that didn’t match her desire.

And he loved her. The boy who called her a princess, who came with her name on his lips and who held her hand in the middle of the violence that an arson is – he loved her so much her chest felt too small to hold her heart.

It would be a lie to say that she wasn’t afraid.

She got dressed when he fell asleep and she crossed the crossed back to her grandparents’ house, shutting the doors to her room behind her and only then did she dare breathe out. Something she couldn’t say tightened her throat and she leaned on the wall, not daring to speak, not daring to cry out.

It felt like drowning, to know that you were loved so much. And to know that you love someone with the matching intensity, too big for her.

So she did what cowards afraid of love and sacrifice did. She called her mother and told her she’s coming home, packed her things and made her grandfather drive her to the bus station.

She didn’t look at the little blue house and she didn’t think about what had happened. In her grandpa’s truck, she cowered her head and hoped Bellamy wasn’t up, hoped Octavia wouldn’t stop her and ask her where she was going.

The sun had already begun setting as she stood on the platform, kicking a stray pebble into the dirt and breathing in the summer heat. That was an image she’d remember forever – clutching her backpack straps, messy hair and eyes fixed firmly to the dirt. Sun casting orange glow on the station and sweat pooling in her collarbone.

She got on the bus, clutching her backpack so tight her knuckles went white, and she turned her back to the town when they went through it to get on the highway.

Clarke left because that’s the only thing she could do. She was seventeen and this love, this love was something she knew she would want to sacrifice everything for. They were just kids until that afternoon and she thought about what she’d heard once, how you never really know what you feel about someone until you have sex with them. You don’t know if their eyes will go dark with sheer need, nothing else to it, or if there’s something more – something that makes them cherish every second spent with you.

It was too much, too much and she was too big of a coward to choose between college and Bellamy. One more day with him, and she would have chosen him over anything. Because nothing else mattered, nothing else mattered when she knew he didn’t lie about anything – he loved her, he loved her so fucking much it brought tears to her eyes.

And she got on that bus because she loved him just as much. And it frightened the hell out of her.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! And also, happy first day of autumn!
> 
> (i really don't know what to say anymore tbh, i'm just grateful that you're reading this angst fest)


	5. Laughter Lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I use songs as chapter titles - sue me!  
> On a second thought, don't. Please. I need the money for my lavish lifestyle of marathoning TV shows and eating insane amounts of comfort food. And fic writing.
> 
> Now that I've made a weak joke, I should tell you that you'll either hate me or love me after this chapter, the final chapter, but I'm seriously hoping for the latter.
> 
> Enjoy!

It takes Clarke a while to get used to being back in Boston but when she finally does, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.

She gets up in the early morning, sometimes after she’d slept for only two or three hours, throws her pale green scrubs on and gets a vanilla late from a coffee shop down the road. Then it’s off to work, small talk with her colleagues, surgeries she can perform because her hands aren’t trembling anymore, and the days breeze past her in graveyard shifts and passing out on the couch when she stumbles through her apartment doors.

The apartment is still the same and she doesn’t bother changing the locks. Finn already got his things, she notices the lack of his books on the bookshelf and his coffee mug is gone, but it doesn’t make her feel as torn as she would have thought. She really feels nothing at all. Everything went away after that punch, if there was anything there in the first place.

Bellamy, on the other hand – well, Clarke tries not to think about him. Tries not to imagine him waiting for her with dinner in the oven when she’s had a long day but after a while, she gives up. It makes her feel better, it pushes her to use the stairs when the elevator isn’t working and she’s only slightly disappointed to find that there’s no one else in the apartment.

Her fingers itch to text him and she tosses her phone from one hand to the other during her break, wishing she could tell him about the crappy coffee and the kid who smiled like she’s the best thing in the world when she gave him a lollipop. Bellamy would appreciate that and, when she comes to terms with the impossibility of her texting him, she tries to imagine his chuckle and it gets her through her break.

He gradually becomes her happy memory, something to turn back to when everything else is shit, when her mother is calling to see if she’s okay (and she wants to say that she isn’t, this place doesn’t feel like home because her home is in Ark, but she doesn’t), when she’s lost a patient, when Wells’ death anniversary rolls around.

But there are days when she’s disgusted with herself for imagining him comforting her, for brushing her fingertips on her lips imagining they were his, and the gaping hole in her chest threatens to suck everything in. She’s angry but the time has run out and there’s nothing she can do anymore. She just wants to let go, but she can’t. It’s hard to let go of something that was never really yours but it still felt like it had your name written all over it.

Clarke meets Lexa in the bar down the block from the hospital. She’s sarcastic and quick-witted and gorgeous as she approaches Clarke, saying she’s been wondering if the blonde needs a drink. Things go fast from there, one minute she’s making Clarke laugh into her whiskey and the other they’re pressed against each other in the alley behind the bar and Lexa is moaning into her mouth.

It doesn’t last long, no matter how much they try to make it work. Lexa is a district attorney who doesn’t have time for dating and she makes it hard and clear after they’ve had sex one night and they’re lying on the floor of Clarke’s living room.

“Love is weakness, Clarke,” Lexa whispers and Clarke thinks it should be soft – whispering should always be soft – but it’s sharp. Everything about the woman is sharp. “I don’t have the time for it. But we make a good couple.”

They do, God, they do. They are young and professional and there isn’t a topic Clarke can’t talk to Lexa about but something is missing. Something very crucial to a good relationship is missing and it isn’t just love.

Finally, Clarke realizes what it is when they’re seated on the opposing sides of the table in a really fancy restaurant for their one month anniversary.

“Are you expecting someone?” Lexa asks as Clarke snaps her head to the doors for what seems to be the twentieth time that evening.

“No, I-“ and then she trails off because she is. Whenever she holds Lexa’s hand, she’s imagining Bellamy’s and whenever something happens, Clarke is hoping he’s going to rush in through whatever doors that are keeping them away and – save her.

Really, just save her.

And it isn’t like she didn’t try to get over him. She did. She really did. But she wasn’t seventeen anymore and she wasn’t sacrificing it for anything valuable this time. No, this time it was just pointless.

Lexa nods, patient as ever, and then she sets the menu back on the table and waves the waiter off. Her fingers and long and nimble as she claps her hands together and looks at Clarke.

She’s sharp, she’s sharp corners and witty remarks and she isn’t the sun, she is the moon but Clarke misses the warmth.

“Who are they?”

Clarke considers lying but then she realizes there’s no point. Lexa was very clear about love and Clarke knew she was fond of her but they were compatible, they weren’t in love.

“His name is Bellamy.” If that surprises Lexa, she doesn’t show, only nods again, beckoning her to continue. “It’s a long story.”

“It usually is,” Lexa smiles and Clarke knows this is the first time she’s looked that wistful. “I have one too. Her name was Costia. She was killed when I asked her to find the information for a case I had been building. It was a tactic, of course. But she was killed because she was mine.”

Clarke remembers headlines, years ago, about a woman who worked in the Ministry of Defense and who had been assassinated. The culprit was caught after a while, thanks to Lexa Woods.

The same Lexa who was now sitting across from Clarke, very still and very serious.

“I care about you, Clarke. But Costia is dead and your Bellamy isn’t,” Clarke didn’t miss the way she said ‘your’. “You are an amazing woman but your place isn’t with me.”

They parted amicably, and Clarke didn’t even try to stop it. Lexa was right because Lexa usually was. Clarke would always have a friend in her, she promised, and just like that – it was over.

The days seemed to get longer after that, no one to talk to again. Even if what she had with Lexa wasn’t fulfilling, wasn’t what Clarke needed, it was still something. It was still someone who kissed you and wished you a good night over the phone, someone who could talk about their work and help you get your mind off things – even if only for a while.

Clarke throws herself into her work even more, until she’s practically not sleeping in her apartment anymore – she goes there to take a shower and change but the counters are too white and she hates the IKEA grey walls and the city’s flashing lights when she gets drunk and cries.

The couch in the staff room is better. If anyone notices, they don’t mention it.

Clarke’s successfully reduced herself to basic needs, shutting any other thoughts down and it helps. She doesn’t imagine Bellamy anymore, the weight of his body pressing into hers. She doesn’t imagine Octavia’s roaring laughter. She doesn’t imagine what it would feel like to shout at the TV with Miller again.

She mostly stops imagining and starts doing. Her statistics get better, her patients are happier and she just goes with it.

It isn’t until early October that Bellamy calls.

Her phone starts ringing in the middle of the one night she didn’t spend at the hospital but instead trudged back home and passed out on the couch. She thinks about letting it ring but whoever calls is persistent and she swears all the way to her purse in the hallway before she sees her phone.

She knows it’s Bellamy even before she reads the name because in a fit of happiness while she was still in Ark, she changed his caller photo to one blurry and fuzzy she’d taken in Grounder’s. In the photo, he’s leaning over the counter with a huge smile on his face and she remembers telling him a really cheesy joke to make him laugh.

There’s no doubt in her when she answers it. Not answering it isn’t even an option.

“Bellamy?”

“Hi – um, yeah – hi Clarke. Look-“

Something’s wrong. She doesn’t chalk up his stuttering to not wanting to talk to her. There is something else and something’s wrong.

“What’s wrong?”

He sighs. “It’s Octavia.”

Her stomach clenches and she braces her hands on the table. No. _No._

“What happened? Is she alright?”

“She had an accident on the way over, she’s in the hospital, I don’t – nobody’s telling me fucking anything!” Bellamy shouts, but his voice trails off so she knows he’s probably shouting at a doctor.

“Bellamy – listen – no, listen to me!” she hates yelling at him but he gets angry when he’s panicked and it won’t help. “Just – where are you? Tell me where you are.”

“In Alexandria, I’m – her car’s wrecked and she’s in surgery-“

“Everything’s going to be fine, you hear me? Octavia is going to be alright. I have a friend who works there and I’ll get back to you. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

She’s barely pressed the ‘end’ button before looking up the number of the hospital in Alexandria and then calling them. She does have a friend, Harper, and when she answers Clarke is just glad the woman is on call.

Octavia is fine, Harper informs her, or at least – she will be. Her injuries are consistent with a car crash, the preliminary exams and CT scans show broken ribs and some head trauma but Harper refuses to tell her anything more until they’re done with surgery.

As soon as she’s thanked Harper, Clarke is dialing Bellamy with one hand and buying plane tickets with the other.

“Clarke?” he exclaims, breathless. “You find out anything?”

“Yeah – look, my friend told me she has head trauma and broken ribs-“Bellamy lets out a sharp exhale. “No, no, Bell – that’s expected. Harper says it’s not severe so she’s going to make it.”

“She is?”

“She is,” Clarke smiles into the phone. She’s a doctor, she’s not supposed to say someone’s going to make it until they actually do but she’s willing to make an exception. If anyone can survive this, Octavia can.

“Thank God,” he sounds relieved and Clarke pauses at the doorway. A few seconds of silence pass before he speaks again. “Thank you – I mean it, I know it’s not – uh-“

“It’s fine, I – I’ll be there in a couple of hours, my flight leaves at five.”

“You’re coming here?” he gasps.

“Yeah, I am. Just sit tight and ask for Harper Wyatt if you need anything, that’s – that’s the friend.”

He thanks her over and over again and it isn’t until she’s said goodbye and leaned on the wall that she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in.

All the okays and the alrights she’d said to Bellamy helped her too. Because she’s good with panic, she’s good at working under pressure and she goes on auto-pilot when it’s too much.

She’s scared shitless for Octavia. Car accidents don’t happen to people like Octavia Blake – they’re too strong and too resilient for anything to happen to them but, then again, it’s somehow easy to forget everything that has already happened to Blake siblings when they laugh so bright and provide their shoulders for crying on – it’s easy to forget that they never knew their fathers, had a rough childhood with a mostly absent mother, lost their mother too – struggled for everything they had.

It’s easy to forget flashes of their eyes making them look older than they are when they radiate warmth and understanding.

It’s easy to think they don’t need anyone.

She makes it to the plane, but barely. Sitting in that flying tin can for three hours nearly drives her insane and her neighbor asks her to stop tapping her leg, something she didn’t even realize she was doing. She just wants to get there, see if Octavia is out of surgery, see what she can do.

Clarke thinks she probably runs from the airport to the hospital, slamming her hands on the reception desk and looking for Octavia Blake. The nurse eyes her warily but then, and only then, does she remember to introduce herself as doctor and then she’s rushing behind the woman who briefs her on Octavia’s condition.

“She’s still in surgery but she’s doing well as far as I know. I’ll ask and let you know.”

Clarke nods, sidestepping the nurse when she spots a familiar mop of curly hair down the hallway and then she’s running again, only vaguely aware of people turning around and someone asking her to stop. She doesn’t, not until Bellamy raises his head and looks at her.

He looks wrecked, miles away even from the worst she’s ever seen him, and she closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around him and holding on so tight she might crack his ribs.

“I’m here, Bell, I’m here,” she whispers into his hair and he just holds on to her. He doesn’t say anything and she whispers that she understands, keeps repeating it, promises that Octavia will be fine even if it’s not her promise to make.

She’d promise anything to make him feel better.

He clings to her like she’s his lifeline and she squeezes him tighter every time his shoulders start shaking, violent sobs rippling his throat extinguished in her sweater. He feels so small, so cold and so powerless in her arms and she wishes she could break down the OR doors and help Octavia but she can’t.

She can only stay with him, tell him that everything is going to be alright and try not to collapse. He needs her more.

After what seemed like ages, she moves to sit in the chair next to him but doesn’t let go – her knuckles are white from squeezing his hand and her thigh is still pressed against his. She’s not letting go because her being there means he can let go – and he needs to.

Bellamy was her strength more times than she can count and now that he needs her there is nothing else for her to do but reciprocate. She’s scared for Octavia, she wants to run down the hall screaming for Harper or for anyone who can tell her anything – she wants to operate herself just so she’s sure Octavia will pull through, but she _can’t_.

“We fought.”

His voice is hoarse from crying, breaking because when he couldn’t cry anymore he heaved, his body shaking in violent tremors of what she knew was the tangible fear of losing the one person he can’t lose.

“We fought and that’s – she was driving from DC to see me. Because we-“he stops and his head drops into his hands but Clarke envelops her arms around his shoulders. It seems a lot like holding his head above water, but just. “We fought and I told her my life ended the day she was born. And I – it didn’t, I was just angry but I told her that and she was on her way to see me when-“

His whole life was crumbling in front of him, for what must have been the hundredth time. And Clarke understood that he felt guilty – but he wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault, it was just life. Just life, nothing more and nothing less, enough to wreck you and leave you stranded without asking if you had food or water.

“Bellamy, it’s not your fault,” she tries sounding softer but her words slide past him and she wills herself to steady her voice. “Bellamy, it’s not. She knows how much you love her and she – she loves you too. It’s not your fault. And she’s going to make it through, she’s Octavia. She has her big brother waiting for her, she has Lincoln and she has all the people whose lives she made better. It’s not her time.”

He cries harder and she squeezes hand tighter.

She doesn’t let go until Lincoln arrives and then it’s just to crouch next to him, wipe his tears with her hands and ask him if he wants coffee. They’ve been waiting for hours, heads snapping whenever someone walked down the hall but no one had any news. It was just mindless waiting.

When she returns with sizzling hot drinks, Lincoln and Bellamy are talking in hushed voices and both of them look wrecked.

Monty, Jasper and Miller arrive just as the night begins setting and there’s still no news. They look worried, as all of them do, but Miller thought to bring some soup and Clarke shoves it down Bellamy’s throat despite his protests.

She knows he doesn’t feel like eating – and neither does she, her stomach is so clenched she thinks she might throw up if she swallows anything, but he has to.

“How is she – Octavia?” Miller thinks to ask after he’s slumped down in a chair next to Clarke’s. She wandered off in search for Harper after Bellamy managed to fall asleep on his crumpled jacket. He made her promise to wake him up if there’s anything at all.

“I don’t know.”

Harper doesn’t know either but she offers them a couch in the doctor’s lounge, something that Clarke waves off because Bellamy won’t move an inch until he’s heard Octavia is out of the woods. And neither will Lincoln.

Clarke knows they’ve had their differences at first but now they’re both there for Octavia. Bellamy is desperate in a way that only siblings who’ve gone through hell together can be – desperate because he feels guilty, like he always does when shit happens and he thinks he could have stopped it. Desperate because Octavia and he always had each other, even when their mother worked long shifts and did everything necessary to keep them alive.

Lincoln, on the other hand, he’s sad like lovers are sad. Furious that he can’t change anything but patient because he knows everything about Octavia, and she’s a fighter. Clarke sees it in his eyes, the belief in the girl on the operating table, but she also sees him want to falter because it’s hard – it’s hard hoping and believing when you just can’t know.

But he believes. And Bellamy hopes.

Clarke – Clarke doesn’t know what she’s doing. Mostly, she’s just trying to keep them alive, both of them, and she’s doing her best to get them everything they need. It’s the art of compartmentalization she’s mastered; if she focuses hard enough on keeping everyone else alive, she can forget about the gut wrenching feeling she gets when she dares to think about losing Octavia, she can forget about Bellamy’s bitter tears (and how similar they are to the ones begging to spill from her eyes) and she can forget about being Clarke Griffin.

The news of Octavia’s condition come around midnight and Bellamy and Lincoln are shooting up from their chairs when they notice the doctor. He’s young but Clarke remembers him holding a speech on one conference so he must be good. That’s good.

Bellamy laces his fingers with Clarke’s when she comes to stand up next to him, the exhausted doctor shrugging his bloody scrubs off. She tries not to think about the blood being Octavia’s.

“The surgery went well. We put her in the ICU, and it’s only a matter of her pulling through this night. I’ll be able to tell you more in the morning.”

“When can we see her?” Lincoln asks before Bellamy’s able to, but the latter squeezes Clarke’s hand and she knows it’s relief.

“In the morning. She needs to rest. The best you can do is go rest yourselves.”

He knows they’re not going to take his advice but he still tries. Clarke thanks him before she turns to the rest of their motley crew – all wearing the same faces of desperation and fatigue, dark circles under their bleary eyes.

Clarke relays the news and there are no whoops, no cheers. Only slow, relieved smiles before Monty and Jasper excuse themselves but promise to come first thing in the morning.

“You need to sleep, man,” Miller finally addresses Bellamy who is back in his chair again, elbows leaned on his knees and gaze fixed straight ahead. Clarke knows he’s prepared to wait however long it takes, not moving from his spot. “Come on, you’re not doing Octavia any favors.”

“Fuck you.”

If Miller is insulted, he doesn’t show it, just lets out a sigh and switches his focus to Clarke.

“Don’t worry. Get some sleep, Nate. I’ll take care of these two.”

Lincoln is already asleep, leaning on the wall in a position that’s going to make him have a horrible crick in his neck in the morning, but Clarke covers him with his jacket and lets him be.

She turns to Bellamy and finds him already looking up at her. There’s something in his eyes but it’s not desperation anymore – it’s tentative relief he doesn’t know if he should be having.

She’s seen so much of it in his eyes.

“Come on,” Clarke takes his hand, bringing him up to his feet while he stares at her, confused. “We’ll be back.”

Harper tells them where they can find the staff bathroom and she leads him there, not letting go of his hand. The hospital walls are white and the air smells of disinfectant and medicine, but it’s different in the bathroom. It’s almost more humane.

She orders Bellamy to sit on the counter and then washes her hands, the first drop of water she’s had in hours. It’s not that she feels filthy, she just feels tired and the lack of sleep makes her drowsy. But she can do it because she’s been through worse.

The fluorescent lights crackle above their heads as she brings a wet paper towel to Bellamy’s face. He’s still confused but she doesn’t know if it’s the tired confused or just confused because she’s washing his face.

“What? You stink.”

It’s the first time she’s heard him laugh in two days and her heart warms up a little.

“She’s going to be alright, you know?” she asks him, rubbing the towel over his neck and trying not to flinch when he leans into the touch. He’s cold and his skin is almost grey underneath the bronze and he looks so devastated it makes her heart ache.

“I do.” Bellamy stops her hand, wrapping his fingers around her forearm. The lights crackle again, just a second of darkness, and his lips brush against her wrist. “Thank you, Clarke.”

A ‘nothing to thank me for’ would be appropriate but she stays quiet, leaning her cheek into his palm. His fingers are soft and gentle, tracing her cheekbones and she knows he needs the comfort of touching her. She needs the comfort of touching him.

They don’t do anything, just lean into each other, foreheads touching and fingers intertwining as a leaky faucet drips, drips, so loud in all that silence. There is no need to say anything, not for a while, not when they can pretend like they aren’t two train wrecks gradually stumbling into each other.

Lincoln is awake when they get back and he leaves to get food. Clarke leans on the same place he had leaned on and Bellamy lowers his head into her lap. She doesn’t know when they fall asleep but it’s all the same anyway. They just slip into darkness again.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Octavia tells them is “I’m back, bitches” and then she falls asleep again. Clarke doesn’t know if she’s going to cry or laugh.

She settles on both.

After Bellamy talks to the doctor, who convinces him that now that Octavia’s awake she’s definitely going to get better, Lincoln offers to stay behind and, much to Clarke’s disbelief, he accepts.

Clarke manages to drive back to Ark somehow, even if her bones ache and she doesn’t think she’s going to make it. But she does, begging an hour off the universe just to get them home safely.

Bellamy doesn’t speak until they’re in the little blue house again, the door clattering behind them. Somewhere in the last two days, Clarke got thirty voicemails, twenty texts and her battery was drained. She doesn’t bother checking them as she helps Bellamy up the stairs and into his bedroom.

Adrenaline had been force-feeding them energy, helping them get through the last couple days, and now that they’re coming off of the high it just makes them exhausted.

“Let’s get you to bed,” she whispers, pushing the doors open with the shoulder Bellamy’s not leaning on. Her voice is slower, her thoughts are slower but she perseveres. It’s not her time to pass out.

She gets him into the bed, makes him take off his shoes but she knows he’s even more tired than she is and there is no point in insisting on a shower. Instead, she tucks him in, pulling the covers up to his chin while he looks at her. He doesn’t even stare, he just looks.

He sounds broken when he speaks. “Please stay.”

There are one hundred things she could think that this is about but her answer is the same to every single one.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

An ‘ever’ hangs in the air between them and Clarke doesn’t know if Bellamy heard it but she thinks he might have. She climbs into his bed, pulling his head on her chest as he curls into her. Their limbs intertwine and he falls asleep with her carding her fingers through his hair.

There is no fire, there are no oceans and miles and whatever the fuck that distance was all about. There is just the two of them, stranded on his bed like they’re on a desolate island, too tired to fight the tide any longer.

Without him, there is no light. Without him, there are no flames and there is no burning passion threatening to scorch everything in its wake. Without him, it’s only fire and heat that sticks to your skin – fingertips begging to touch someone, longing for the heat that is not destruction but growing – always growing. Without him, there is nothing.

And with him, in the small, dark bedroom, beneath the rumpled covers of last night’s storm, still so clear in their aching bones – with him, no matter where Clarke is, with him there is universe and there is hope and there is home.

She had been running in the wrong direction. Running to Boston, running to med school, running to hospital without anyone to scrub away the blood collected on her cheeks. Running without anything to run to. It was wrong, it was fighting for nothing.

But there is everything with him. Everything pooled in crevices of their bodies, in locked closets of their minds – monsters rattling their cages, they grow quiet for him. They grow quiet. And no pain is big enough not to kneel before his tired body next to hers.

“I’ll always run to you,” she tells him in the early morning, after twisting and turning and not falling asleep because she is so tired her mind doesn’t know what sleep is. She tells him that because he’ll understand, Bellamy always understands.

And somehow, she always does run to him. To the only place that matters.

His hands are warm when he pulls her into him and that’s where she stays. That’s all that matters. That’s home.

 

* * *

 

 

The phone keeps ringing and Clarke keeps sending it straight to voicemail. After a while, her battery is drained again and she leaves it be. She’s got better things to do.

Octavia comes home on one wonderful, sunny Sunday afternoon and Bellamy throws a barbecue party. She’s laughing and rolling her eyes, like always, and insists that white gauze covering her head is an accessory and it’s not her “fault that you don’t know what’s trending in Milan and Paris”. Everyone’s thrilled and she mopes because alcohol doesn’t work well with painkillers.

The leaves change colors and Clarke hears them crunch under the soles of her red chucks when she crosses the Ground Road. Some new kids started school and every day around four in the afternoon, the whole street is brimming with cheerful laughter and some new jokes they can’t get to the bottom of.

The phone doesn’t ring anymore and even if it did, Clarke would ignore it. She’s doing something she should have done a very long time ago.

Bellamy holds her hand when they drive to Boston in his truck, nine hours of open road and crappy sandwiches bought in gas station stores. Fluorescent lights beam at them and the cashiers are worn down, but maybe it’s only Clarke who’s dreading the return to the city she wants to burn all the bridges too. But Bellamy laces his fingers through hers and she smiles bashfully. Always bashful, and always grateful that he took her in. For the third time. For the last time.

She realizes that her apartment really never felt like a home. She realizes it when Bellamy’s handing her the final mug she’s going to pack and raises his eyebrow at her. “That’s it?”

They’ve barely filled up the bed of his truck with her things. Two suitcases of clothes, one box of books and one box of things of sentimental value. Two years. Two years and nothing more than four things.

“That’s all there is.”

He seems sad but she tells him not to be. It was a wrong place to want to make home in.

Her grandparents’ house, well – _her_ house, in Ark still strongly dislikes her but they’ve silently agreed on a compromise. She brings the walls down with Miller, both of them wearing paint splattered overalls as Bellamy laughs at them, and she repaints the whole damn hallway.

At the end of November, when it’s already cold enough to rub your hands in pointless attempts to warm them up, Clarke is nearly done with what was her grandparents’ bedroom when she was a kid. The lace is gone and the vanity is repainted, but there are still sheets covering the floor and she can’t choose the right color.

Bellamy sneaks up on her from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist and leaning his chin on her shoulder. “What a shithole.”

He’s joking but Clarke still feels awfully proud of the work she’s done.

“It might be a shithole, but it’s _my_ fucking shithole.”

“Your shithole?”

“Alright,” Clarke rolls her eyes and sets her hands on his, still wrapped around her waist. She’s happy. “ _Our_ shithole.”

 

It stays their shithole until they’re old and their hair has gone grey. The little blue house becomes a home to a new family, the Jacksons, who invite them to their barbecues and don’t mention that one time the Griffin-Blakes got drunk and made out on the slated roof beneath what was once Bellamy’s room.

It stays their shithole even when the kids are running around, and Octavia and Clarke are lounging in the deck chairs with margaritas as their husbands flip the burgers.

It stays their shithole through fights, through tears, through kisses and through really corny jokes. It stays their shithole because it’s what they have, it’s the tangible evidence of their love and, really, truly and honestly, because it’s their _home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks goes out to everyone who's read this fic - whether you were bored or whether you were piqued by the summary - thank you. A whole box of chocolate goes to those who left kudos - I'll never fail to be amazed at people actually liking my work. An elephant-sized hug goes to those who commented - who took their time to write even one line because they liked Arsonist's Lullabye. And to those who left long comments, detailed what they liked, what they didn't like - helped me make this a better read for everyone - well, I can only offer my life-long loyalty. And my firstborn, if you're into that. 
> 
> So - thank you. Thank you and thank you a million times again! 
> 
> And if, by any chance, you have a prompt you'd like me to write, or you just want to follow a hot mess of a blog, or like send me asks along the lines of "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???" - I'm [right here](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com).

**Author's Note:**

> First things first - thank you for reading! The next chapter will be up soon and don't worry because it's already written. There's a total of five chapters to this fic and they are angstyyy and also, this has practically like ruined my life? So I hope you liked it and that it wasn't all for nothing. 
> 
> You wanna cry with me? Good! Come visit me on [my tumblr](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com) and we'll find a date that works for all of us.


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